


Homespun, Heartfelt, and Handmade

by a_gay_poster



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Canon-Typical Depictions of Child Abuse, GaaLee Fest 2019, Gaara versus Isolation, M/M, Much Ado About Hippogriffs, Triwizard Tournament
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-09-18 22:54:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20320867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_gay_poster/pseuds/a_gay_poster
Summary: Gaara has always lived a life of loneliness. As the Durmstrang Triwizard Champion and the son of their notorious, ex-dark wizard Headmaster, he’s become accustomed to being surrounded by a distant orbit of admirers, but no true friends. Then he’s almost brained by a Bludger at a Hogwarts Quidditch match, and everything changes…Written for the GaaLee Summertime of Love Fest 2019, Day 2: Hogwarts AU.





	1. The Quidditch Match

**Author's Note:**

> This story is already complete - new chapters will be posted every Tuesday (except for next week, because that's Day 9 of the Fest). 
> 
> Unending thanks to my wife and beta [trustmeimthe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/trustmeimthe) for editing this hot mess. If you're into JJBA or Discworld I 100% recommend checking out her writing (she's a much better writer than I am!) 
> 
> Also check out the rest of the [Summertime of Love Fest](https://puregaalee.tumblr.com/post/184654222850/gaalee-festival-2019every-way-i-could-love-you) on Tumblr or search #gaaleefest19!

The stands rang with the cheers of the assembled students, the roar of their enthusiasm filling the brisk winter air. Above their heads, dark-robed figures darted to and fro, accompanied by the booming voice of an unfamiliar witch, charmed to resound around the pitch.

“And there goes Konohamaru with the Quaffle. He neatly dodges that Bludger - nice hit by Lee there - and it looks like he’s going to pass it off to Moegi by the Hufflepuff goal. He’s winding up and - _ooh!_ \- intercepted with some careful maneuvering by Tenten! 

“Here she comes, folks, speeding down the pitch - now this is one witch to watch! Look at how she handles that broom; the boys from Gryffindor haven’t got a chance against her. She’s not even looking for her fellow Chasers, ladies and gentlemen: this is a one witch show!

“There she goes, right towards Hinata at the goal posts. Now, this has been a rough season for Hinata, as we all know, and she’s been trying to build up her confidence as Keeper, but do you reckon she’ll be able to keep up when Tenten’s on the warpath? Oh, nice dodge around her by Tenten there, and she readies her aim and - _Goal!_ That’s ten points for Hufflepuff!” 

The crowd erupted: students with massive yellow banners took up cheering and stomping and whistling from the section across the pitch from the Slytherins. A shower of sparks in the shape of a badger making a crude gesture blossomed into the wintry sky and was quickly blown away by a teacher, who leapt to his feet with a wind charm at the ready. 

Gaara slunk further down in his seat and ducked his chin into the fur collar of his cloak. Kankuro’s head - over-wrapped in several scarves and a wool balaclava topped with a fluffy hat - partially obscured his vision on the left. Temari’s bony shoulder, occasionally shivering in the bracing cold, jutted into him on his right side. The weather at Hogwarts was so much _wetter_ than it was at Durmstrang, cold, damp air soaking into everything and making him miserable. He exhaled in a huff, and his breath crystallized in front of him, forming sparkling flecks of ice on the inside of his scarf. He wrinkled his nose; those crystals were sure to melt soon and make their way down into his robes to chill him to the bone. 

All around him, curious eyes burned on the back of his head. Even between the cheers of the crowd, a rough undercurrent of whispers reached his ears. He supposed it was only natural - between being the Durmstrang Champion and the son of their notorious headmaster - that he should attract some attention, but that didn’t make the feeling any more comfortable. It felt almost slimy: colder and wetter even than the snow flurries rapidly collecting on his nose and eyelashes, making his eyes burn. He rubbed his palms together fruitlessly in search of a bit of warmth, and a group of Slytherin girls behind him cooed in sympathy. 

“Hangin’ in there, kiddo?” Kankuro whispered, leaning over into his space. “Hopefully we’ll be wrappin’ up here soon. Looks like the Hufflepuff Seeker just spotted somethin’.” 

Gaara had hardly been paying attention to the match at all, but he glanced up at the pitch just in time to see the Seeker - a slight boy with thick glasses and a ruddy nose - making his way steadily towards a glimmer of gold just above the Slytherin section of the stands. 

“Udon’s making his move towards the Snitch!” the announcer’s voice boomed. “But Kiba and Naruto have spotted him. Let’s see if he can outpace those Bl- _Oh my god!_”

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion. 

Udon looked up, pushing his glasses up his face as his broom dropped a few feet. 

Two Bludgers sailed over his head, batted simultaneously by the two Gryffindor Beaters, and flew straight towards the stands. 

Kankuro gave an aborted cry and jolted to his feet, wand at the ready, but Gaara hardly had time to do more than widen his eyes in alarm as the Bludgers beelined towards his face. 

Just then, there was a blur of yellow and black filling Gaara’s vision. A tremendous _crack_ rang out, and a gust of air blew past his nose, a bat whiffing just centimeters from his face, close enough that the snowflakes were disturbed from his eyelashes. Gaara blinked and saw the beaming grin of one of the Hufflepuff Beaters, shiny black hair blown back and a determined pair of dark eyes under thick eyebrows. The Beater made eye contact with Gaara and winked, extending a thumbs-up on one gloved hand. 

Gaara’s heart started to race; his mouth went dry as time sped back up to normal and sound flooded in all around him.

“- _incredible_ save by Lee there - two Bludgers with one swing! That really should have been a foul for Naruto and Kiba, by the way, Professor Kakashi…. Are you even paying attention?” 

On the other side of the pitch, a white-haired wizard in referee’s robes shrugged his shoulders and returned to reading his book.

“Gaara, are you okay?” Temari said urgently, one hand on his shoulder in a death grip. She leaned in until she was within his field of vision. “Did you get hit?”

“I’m fine,” Gaara replied, but his heart didn’t slow, even after the match ended in a Hufflepuff victory and they made the long walk back to the Durmstrang ship.

* * *

The ship docked on the banks of the Great Lake was larger on the inside than it appeared on the outside, but it was still a pale imitation of the accommodations of the Durmstrang castle. Nonetheless, it had enough space inside for a common room, with a blazing fire in a brazier in the middle and dark leather couches neatly lined against the walls. Gaara took up residence on one of the high-backed leather chairs closest to the fire, having changed into his third pair of woolen socks for the day, and let the heat soak into his bones. He was just beginning to relax, closing his eyes and finally letting his heartbeat slow, trying to reconcile the discomfited feeling in his stomach with the memory of a grin so bright it had nearly blinded him….

“Gaara.” 

A sharp, familiar voice disturbed him from his rest. He cracked one eye open to see a shadowed figure looming over his chair. 

“Father.”

“Come to my office.”

To Gaara’s left, side-by-side on a loveseat with scrolls strewn all across their laps, Temari and Kankuro exchanged a wary glance. Gaara didn’t acknowledge them as he regained his feet and followed the swish of his father’s robes down a dark corridor, treading lightly behind his heavy, uneven steps. Whispers from a clutch of girls by the common room door followed him out.

Rasa was already behind his desk when Gaara entered the study. He gestured for Gaara to shut the door and sit across from him, then flicked his wand. The lock clicked behind Gaara like a bone popping out of joint. 

The broad mahogany span of the headmaster’s desk was as ostentatious as it was unnecessary. A gilded cage containing a slumbering Mortis Bat occupied fully one half of the desk’s width, and the other half was mostly covered with scrolls of parchment. Directly in front of Rasa, a black-feathered quill moved across a parchment seemingly of its own free will, scrawling line after line of blood-red ink. 

Gaara hesitated at the very edge of the wrought iron chair on the near side of the desk. He couldn’t be sure if it was the same one from the Durmstrang castle, but the one in his father’s usual office had been bewitched to burn red-hot when it sensed students lying.

Rasa cracked his knuckles and then his neck. Gaara winced. 

“Have you discovered the nature of the first task yet?” Rasa began without preamble.

Gaara blinked for a moment. This thread of conversation was wholly unanticipated. He searched his thoughts for the perfect sequence of words that would placate his father, to reassure him that Gaara had been doing all he could to succeed. Practice and strategy had occupied nearly all his spare time recently, ever since his name had been read out in the Great Hall. 

“It’s meant to be a surprise,” he replied at length. 

“And you didn’t attempt to use one ounce of cunning to determine what it would be?” Rasa’s voice was sharp as nails digging into Gaara’s flesh. The scribbling of the pen on the parchment intensified. “I overestimated you.”

“‘The first task will test your courage in the face of the unknown,’” Gaara recited mechanically, an exact echo of Professor Hiruzen’s speech. He suddenly felt very distant from his own body. “‘Daring and an iron will are important qualities in a wizard.’” 

Rasa scoffed and, with another flick of his wand, brought a scroll of parchment floating down from one of the high bookshelves that flanked the windowless back wall. 

“You don’t think the other schools’ Champions will have pressed any advantage they could find,” Rasa sneered, “_courage_ or no?” 

Gaara stared at the scroll clutched in his father’s pale, knobbled fingers. There was a wax seal on it in the shape of an hourglass - a timed disintegration charm. He forced his grudging hand to reach for it, fingers gone cold. Whatever dark means had been used to obtain the scroll, it was too late to undo them, and the punishment for refusing the help would likely be worse. The scroll represented an olive branch, poisoned though the tree may have been. 

“I suppose I thought your confounding the Professor to read Temari’s name as my own was enough cheating for one tournament,” Gaara murmured. He bit the inside of his lip so he didn’t grin at his own daring, though he knew he would pay for it later. Inside the pocket of his robes, he could have sworn he heard the scroll fizzing like a lit fuse. 

“Don’t make me regret it,” Rasa snapped. 

On the desk, the quill screeched across the parchment until it ripped. Bright heat blossomed on Gaara’s forehead; the skin of his scar rippled with indescribable pain. He clenched his fists until his fingernails broke the skin of his palms, but he refused to let it show on his face.

“Dismissed,” Rasa commanded. “And be quick; that scroll will destroy itself in fifteen minutes.”

Gaara stumbled back down the hallway, moving slowly with his face still stinging. He brought a hand up to press against his scar and found it flecked with red when he pulled it away. He hastily wiped the blood off on the inside of the sleeve of his robe as he entered the common room. With barely a tilt of his chin, Temari and Kankuro rose as one and followed him to his room.

They sat in a circle on his bed. Kankuro’s face was pale, his lips a thin line as Gaara tapped the scroll with his wand.

“What did he do to you in there?” Temari whispered, staring down at the scroll unfurling. As she spoke, spines of ink wound their way across the parchment.

“Don’t worry about it,” Gaara replied. “I’m fine.” The burning on his face had not yet abated, but he allowed himself to be distracted by the scene taking form on the parchment in front of him.

From the center of the parchment unspooled inky lines, dancing and curving around each other until they formed a map of a stone maze - no, a _labyrinth_. In the very center of it, a tiny beast took shape. It shook its head, and a leonine mane fanned out around its face. It stomped four tiny, cloven hooves. Along its back, spines rippled and a great, winding tail lashed. The beast looked up at them and gave a silent roar.

“What the hell is that?” Kankuro breathed.

Temari’s knuckles went white on her knees. 

“A Chimaera,” she hissed. “What on earth are they thinking?”

Gaara looked away from the parchment to regard her bloodless face, her eyes wide and wild. She met his gaze and her eyes narrowed, her expression hardening into steely rage.

“Gaara, they can’t possibly expect students to do this - it’s much too dangerous.”

“We’ve fought dangerous beasts before,” Gaara replied gruffly. The parchment started to emit a faint hissing noise.

“Not like this. No wizard has ever killed a Chimaera.” The words tumbled frantically from Temari’s tense lips. “I mean, there’s a legend about someone who bested it in battle, but even he died of exhaustion afterwards. This is _insane_! You can’t possibly-”

“I’ll do it,” Gaara interrupted her. “I’m going to the library. I have research to do.”

The parchment glowed bright red and crumbled to ash on his bedspread. 

He brushed it to the floor as he stood, and left the room without another word.


	2. The Library

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slightly late update this week, because I posted "On My Way Home" for Day 16 of GaaLeeFest. Future updates for this fic will be every Tuesday, though!

The Hogwarts library was more than twice the size of the one at Durmstrang: a shadowed, high-windowed room littered with tables and wooden chairs for students to study in. Dust motes trailed and spiraled in the gray light from the overhead windows that died before it quite penetrated to the floor. Tall stacks of books in rickety shelves stretched into seemingly interminable distance, the far end of the library fading away into shadow. The sound of paper shuffling and wood scraping disturbed the silence as the shelves rearranged themselves, constantly moving and shifting into ever more obscure patterns. Heavy, cloth-backed books soared through the air propelled by their own pages to reshelve themselves, the leaves flapping as if they were wings.

If the size of it weren’t intimidating enough, most of the books were in English, which Gaara still struggled at times to read. 

Gaara found his way to a massive chest of drawers containing the library’s card catalogue. He pored through it meticulously, searching for any reference to large magical beasts of myth. The library’s filing system was arcane and challenging to understand, only made worse by the fact that the books seemed to have minds of their own when it came to where they were meant to be housed. 

Gaara made his way down an aisle labeled, ominously, **BEASTS**. His mouth moved without words, sounding out the titles he was looking for. He trailed his finger along the edge of the shelf until one of the books snapped at his fingertips. He drew his hand away in a hurry. 

From somewhere behind him came the tittering of female voices. He whipped around, hoping it might be someone who could help him, but only caught the vanishing hems of a group of Slytherin girls’ robes. His lips thinned in irritation. It felt at times as though he’d never be rid of his entourage of admirers, every last one of them too shy to approach him. He didn’t mind being seen as unapproachable, but their lurking was equally annoying.

After several more fruitless minutes, he abandoned his search in favor of the circulation desk.

The librarian was a dark-skinned wizard with his long hair pulled back from his face so tightly that it gave him a severe expression. Gaara was quite certain that he was aware of Gaara’s presence, but he waited until Gaara cleared his throat before raising his head.

“Yes?” the librarian said. “How can I help you?”

Gaara roughly shoved his handful of title cards across the desk. 

“I’m looking for these books.” 

The librarian riffled the cards in his hands, then turned around with a hum. He pulled his wand from the sleeve of his wrinkled robes and levitated a massive book from the shelf behind him. It landed on the circulation desk with a muffled thud and a puff of dust. The book was easily half as high as the man was tall. He began stroking the spine of the book in an intricate pattern, muttering to himself as he did. 

The book fluttered open of its own accord, pages whipping past faster than Gaara could read them. It came to a halt towards the end of its massive litany of names of dates. On the page, rows of letters that Gaara couldn’t quite make out glowed faintly gold.

“Ah,” the librarian said, tapping his chin with the hilt of his wand. “It seems all of those books have been checked out to one student.”

“Who,” Gaara demanded. It wasn’t a question.

The librarian looked up at him and raised one eyebrow. Gaara stared back defiantly. The librarian tutted and shut the book firmly.

“Now, now,” he said, “students’ check-out histories are confidential. We want to promote learning and fearless exploration, after all.”

Gaara continued to stare the man down, unblinking. He had been told before that his stare could rival a Basilisk’s. 

The librarian appeared unperturbed, studying the cover of his book, wand still tapping idly. They stood there in icy silence for much longer than Gaara was accustomed to wait for anything. 

Gaara crossed his arms and exhaled through his nose. No one at Durmstrang would have dared to defy one of his requests for so long.

“Well,” the librarian said at last, looking up with Gaara with a wry smile that wrinkled the long scar across his nose. “I would hate to be accused of being a poor host to our visitors. Rock Lee is usually down at the stables this time of day.” He paused, searching Gaara’s face for something that he didn’t seem to find. “You know where they are? By the Groundskeeper’s cabin, at the edge of the Forbidden Forest.”

Gaara grunted his acknowledgement and turned to leave the library. 

He let the door fall closed behind him without so much as a ‘thank you’.

* * *

The Hogwarts stables were a long, wooden affair, rough-hewn and surrounded by tall grass that burst through the snow in uneven patches. This close to the edge of the Forbidden Forest, there were no paved pathways across the grounds, and Gaara made his way through the snowbanks cautiously, careful not to trip and slide across the ice. Outside the stables was a sizeable paddock, enclosed with a split-rail fence that seemed too low-slung and disheveled to keep much of anything contained for long. Weeds sprung up around the edge of the field and gave the whole place a ramshackle appearance, littered with muddy hoofprints and pools of melted slush. 

Off in the corner of the stables stood a figure attending to some large beast. As Gaara approached the fence, he drew up short in recognition of the Hufflepuff Beater. 

On solid ground, the boy was much taller than Gaara remembered. He looked different, too, his hair no longer windblown, now falling neatly trimmed around his ears. Without the wide grin, his bushy eyebrows dominated his expression. His mouth was drawn down into a pout, lips thinned and face serious. His lips parted occasionally to mutter to the creature - massive and sharp-beaked, with the head of an eagle and the body of a horse. The boy seemed thoroughly occupied, one hand dangling a mouse before the animal’s razored jaws and the other currying its dappled gray hindquarters.

“Rock Lee?” Gaara called across the paddock.

Boy and beast raised their heads in unison. The boy pointed to himself and silently mouthed ‘me?’, as if there were anyone else nearby that Gaara could be speaking to. 

Gaara continued to watch warily as the boy secured the creature and hastened across the paddock to the field’s edge. The hems of Lee’s robes were splattered with mud. He swung his legs over the gnarled top rail of the fence and drew himself up to sit there, knee-high boots dangling in the air. His position on the fence did nothing to ameliorate the difference in height between them, and Gaara found himself craning his neck to stare up into Lee’s dark eyes. 

“Please keep your voice down,” Lee hissed. “Hippogriffs are sensitive to loud noises.”

Lee’s brogue was different than any accent Gaara had ever heard: rougher somehow, every vowel like a diphthong and the words clipped at their ends. His intonation was so different from the posh pronunciation Gaara had grown used to hearing from his English tutors and the wealthy students at the Slytherin breakfast table that it was almost as though he were speaking another language entirely. Gaara furrowed his eyebrows and replayed the words in his mind, leaning forward as if proximity would increase his understanding. 

Coming to a point of comprehension, Gaara looked askance over Lee’s shoulder to the Hippogriff’s enclosure. The creature stomped impatiently, pawing at the ground with one long, taloned foot and tossing its head. Gaara gave an involuntary shudder 

“You’re Gaara,” Lee said, when Gaara had gone some time without responding. “The Durmstrang Champion.”

Gaara nodded.

“What are you doing all the way out here?”

It took Gaara some time to find the right words.

“You checked out all the books on magical beasts from the library.”

Lee’s eyes glimmered in a way that made something spark inside Gaara’s chest, and that blinding smile found its way back across his face. Gaara attributed the burning of his cheeks to the stinging of the cold air around them. His face grew so hot he no longer felt the pain in his scar.

“I did!” Lee exclaimed.

“Although it looks like you’re already an expert. How you handle that…” Gaara faltered, at a loss for words.

Lee cast his eyes to the ground and kicked his feet harder, a blush rising to his cheeks. A fleck of mud dislodged itself from the sole of Lee’s boot and landed on the front of Gaara’s robes.

“Oh, that’s nothing,” he said, abashed. “I just help my uncle out with caring for the magical creatures in between classes! It helps me, too, since I get extra credit. And trust me, I need all the help I can get when it comes to my marks.”

Suddenly, Lee’s body jarred forward and a shadow fell over both boys. Gaara took an alarmed step back.

He pointed a finger at the shape behind Lee’s back. “Your friend escaped.”

Lee whipped around to look over his shoulder. Standing behind him was the Hippogriff, its reins trailing in the mud behind it. It gave an indignant stomp. Its tail lashed in agitation.

“Ningame!” Lee cried. “He’s too clever for his own good, this one.” He hopped down to stand on Gaara’s side of the fence, and his boots landed in a puddle of slush. Mud and melted snow splattered across Gaara’s shoes.

“Sorry about that,” Lee murmured out of the corner of his mouth. His eyes hadn’t moved from the Hippogriff’s face. “Now,” Lee began in a low, cautious voice, “maintain eye contact and do not blink. Hippogriffs see that as a sign of disrespect.”

Staring had always come easily enough to Gaara, and he followed the directive without complaint. The Hippogriff’s eyes were a glassy orange, its pupils slitted like a snake’s. Gaara couldn’t help but notice the way its beak gleamed in the late afternoon sun, a cruelly hooked scythe of keratin perfectly designed for the disembowelment of its prey. 

“Excellent!” Lee praised him, so cheerfully that Gaara was tempted to look over just to see the expression Lee’s face. “Now you can go ahead and bow to him.”

Bowing was not part of Gaara’s repertoire, and certainly not something he was used to being instructed to do. Nonetheless, he played along, more due to Lee’s bubbling enthusiasm than for the sake of the creature glaring at him from the other side of the fence. He dipped his head and shoulders in a clumsy imitation of a bow, uncertain where to place his hands. 

Then he waited, his head ducked, staring at his own now-muddy shoes and Ningame’s talons. Each one was longer than the span of Gaara’s hand. For a long moment, there was no movement from within the paddock. An icy wind blew across the grounds and trailed its fingers down Gaara’s spine.

Lee swallowed audibly. His hand gripped Gaara’s sleeve. “Er,” he stammered, “okay, maybe we should- ” He made to take a step back.

Just then, Ningame began to move. One scaly knee dipped down towards the ground, grey feathers ruffling in the breeze. The beast’s eyes remained locked in a stare, but its head tilted in an unmistakable imitation of a bow.

Lee clapped his hands to his mouth, a muted cheer escaping from between his fingers.

“Wonderful! That means you can give him a pat if you like.”

Gaara reached out one tentative hand over the rail of the fence. He refused to let his fingers tremble as they met the space between the animal’s avian eyes. The feathers were slick, slippery from frost and cold as the air around them, but Gaara felt a thrill of delight at the contact all the same. Ningame’s eyes slipped closed in a slow blink, and he made a soft chuffing sound.

Gaara slowly withdrew his hand and looked over to Lee, who was practically hopping from one foot to the other in excitement. 

“I think he likes you!” Lee exclaimed, his voice dropped to a rough whisper. “Hippogriffs are excellent judges of character, you know.”

Gaara felt the corners of his mouth twitching up against his better judgment. The two boys stood there for a long moment, just staring at one another, smiling. Ningame’s tail began to swish.

“The books?” Gaara prodded. 

“Oh, right!” A blush crept up the side of Lee’s neck to meet the flush already covering his cheeks. If this kept up, he would soon be red from toe to tip, Gaara thought. “Um, just a moment!” 

In an instant, Lee had vaulted back over the fence into the paddock and seized Ningame’s reins. He led him back to the stable and secured him again, pulling the straps tightly.

“And stay there this time!” Lee’s chiding voice carried across the span of the field. “Or there will be no mice for you tomorrow!”

Ningame nipped at Lee’s fingers in response.

“Don’t you sass me!” Lee warned. “I mean it.” He turned and jogged back over to the edge of the field and planted one hand on the top rail of the fence. Gaara noticed his hands were rough, calloused and quite unlike a typical wizard’s, with dirt caked under his neatly trimmed fingernails. In a sudden and impressive display of athleticism, Lee hauled himself back over the fence in one leap, landing soundly on the ground in another splash of mud.

Gaara looked down at his robes. They would need a thorough laundering tonight.

“So!” Lee said, clapping his hands. “The books! Come with me.”

* * *

Lee dragged Gaara through the winding hallways of Hogwarts, up rotating staircases and past oil portraits napping lazily in their frames. Lee’s hand was a steady pressure on Gaara’s sleeve, his skin warm where it brushed the inside of Gaara’s wrist. Gaara wasn’t quite sure how to reconcile his aversion to being touched or being told what to do with his sudden and shocking compliance with Lee’s demands. 

Lee ferried Gaara down a wide stone corridor flanked with high, round windows. In between the patches of sunlight, Gaara noted a cluster of female students in Hogwarts robes and yellow ties engrossed in conversation. Their heads turned in unison as the two boys passed. One girl with her hair in high knots on either side of her head - Gaara recognized her as one of the Hufflepuff Seekers - lifted a hand in a half-wave. She started to open her mouth, but if she had anything to say about the sight of an overly enthusiastic Hufflepuff manhandling the Durmstrang champion, one look at Gaara’s glare sent her mouth snapping shut and kept the thoughts in her head. 

Finally, Lee came to a halt in front of wood-paneled door. In the center of the door was a golden, ring-shaped knocker. Lee ignored it completely, dropping Gaara’s hand to press his palm to the wood of the door. Gaara found himself feeling curiously bereft of the touch, even as he bent with his hands on his knees, panting. Lee certainly could run fast.

The space around Lee’s hand glowed a faint green, and the door swung open to reveal the room inside. 

The room was clearly some sort of office, though it had none of the trappings of a typical workspace: Gaara saw no quills, no ink pots, no scrolls of parchment. Mounted on the back wall behind the desk was a massive, fanged skull, its incisors stained black within its gaping mouth. The walls were lined with tanks and cages of creatures of all types, the room clamorous with their noises. Along one wall stood a plastic tub filled with slimy Flobberworms, all munching on cabbage; along another a sizeable terrarium hummed with a buzzing swarm of Billywigs; and along the third was a glass-walled tank filled with greenery that, when Lee turned on the light, erupted into a cascade of the iridescent orange wings of Flitterbies. The lampshades dangled with phoenix feathers, casting the whole room in an eerie red glow. The desk and chairs were strewn with cast-off animal parts: a glass jar full of the shiny black and blue carapaces of Chizpurfles, a rack of lightbulbs stuffed with Glow Bug skeletons, an oozing pot of Glumbumble treacle.

“This is a professor’s office,” Gaara said. “Are we allowed to be in here?” 

Lee had stooped behind the desk while Gaara was taking everything in, but he stood up again at the words, his arms full of books.

“Oh, yes!” he replied, seemingly unphased by the crowded space or the ambient noise of the creatures. “My uncle Gai - or, well, I’m meant to call him _Professor Gai_ when we’re at school - lets me keep my books in here for studying, so I don’t overrun the dorm room. Chouji kept getting cross with me when he’d trip over them in the morning.”

Lee came around the desk, staggering under the books’ weight, and let them fall to the ground with a heavy _thud_.

“Why do you need so many books?” Gaara asked, as Lee ducked behind a chair and emerged pushing another stack half as tall as he was.

“Uncle Gai always says that becoming the best wizard you can be requires rigorous study and dedication! And since I want to teach Care of Magical Creatures just like him when I’m older, I am going to need lots and lots of studying!” Lee grinned and Gaara felt that strange pang in his chest again. 

Lee dropped his weight gracelessly to sit cross-legged on the thick skin of some unnamed beast that covered the stone floor. He patted the space beside him, and Gaara slowly took a seat. 

Lee hauled a book into his lap and began paging through it with the same enthusiasm with which he seemed to tackle every mundane task.

“So, what kind of creatures are you interested in?” he said, licking his fingers to turn the pages.

“What do you know about Chimaeras?” 

Lee looked up at Gaara with his eyes alight and brimming. He cast aside the book in his lap and leaned across Gaara’s space to grab several others. Gaara let him, though he couldn’t say why.

“Oh, they’re fascinating!” Lee said, already thumbing through the next book. “Have you ever seen one in person?” 

Gaara hesitated. Lee didn’t seem to have any compunction about giving him whatever information he needed, nor the least bit of curiosity or suspicion about why Gaara was asking. 

“No,” he said, “have you?” 

Lee nodded with his tongue sticking out from the corner of his mouth. His eyes didn’t raise from the page in front of him.

“Two summers ago Uncle Gai took me to Greece on holiday. Well, it was work for him, holiday for me, but we got to go to the Grecian Wizarding Zoo, and they have a female Chimaera on display there! They are absolutely beautiful creatures, but very hard to get your hands on one of their eggs- ” Lee paused, swallowing. His Adam’s apple bobbed. “Um, not that either of us were trying to import a Chimaera or anything.” 

Gaara didn’t interject, letting Lee carry on through a vivid description of everything about the creatures that he could think of. Once he had grown used to Lee’s accent, listening to him was easy. There was no pressure for Gaara to speak up - Lee spoke enough for the both of them combined - and Lee’s face and gestures were so animated that, even if Gaara didn’t catch every word, he could easily follow along. Lee’s passion was almost infectious, too. Gaara found himself drawn in. He leaned closer and closer. Lee went through book after book, pointing out various pictures and diagrams and particularly interesting paragraphs, until their foreheads were almost touching over the book spread between them. 

“They’re incredibly fierce fighters, although they didn’t always used to be,” Lee went on, jabbing at a moving picture of a wizard being gored. The Chimaera on the page dodged his fingers and went after the wizard anew. “Did you know that their tails used to more closely resemble serpents’ tails? They looked just like Devil’s Snare, really, all thin and weedy - but then they started being bred to look more like Dragons.” 

Gaara’s mind snagged on something in those words. Suddenly, everything came clear, like an image through a spyglass snapping into clarity. 

He stood abruptly.

“Thank you, Lee,” he interrupted, “for all your help.”

Lee’s thick brows furrowed.

“But I didn’t-” 

Gaara clapped him firmly on the shoulder and walked to the door, leaving Lee still sitting on the floor with a stunned look on his face. 

“Oh,” Lee said, “Er, buh-bye!” 

As Gaara closed the door behind him, he heard Lee call, “Hope to see you again soon!”

* * *

Back at the Durmstrang ship, Gaara hurried to his room. He locked the door behind him with a tap of his wand and dropped to his knees at the end of the bed. There was still ash lingering on the floor, but he ignored it. His robes were already ruined with mud - a few splotches of gray couldn’t make it much worse. 

He threw open the heavy lid of his steamer trunk with a _thunk_ and started digging through the contents. He shoved aside neatly stacked and folded robes, tossed a stack of textbooks to bounce on the fur throw covering his mattress, upended a pile of thick woolen socks onto the floor. There, at the bottom of the trunk, he found what he was looking for: a worn wooden box embossed with the image of a flowering herb. 

He unlatched the filigreed catch holding the box closed and eased it open. Carefully arranged in alphabetical order were tiny satchels of seeds of every kind. Most of them were native to Eastern Europe, but there were a few more exotic types that his father had gifted him, perhaps in an attempt to bribe him into behaving. He quickly flicked through his selection - Belladonna, Bloodroot, Bubotuber…. Just in front of the Dittany seeds, he found them, in a black cloth sack that crinkled when he lifted it. 

He tucked the seeds into the inside pocket of his robes and set about putting his trunk back to rights.

* * *

The next morning at breakfast, Gaara leaned over into Kankuro’s space. 

“Kankuro.”

“Mmuh?”

Kankuro looked up at him with a rasher of bacon hanging from his mouth. On his plate was a pile of sausages bigger than his head, oozing grease. Across the table, Temari rolled her eyes.

“Can you make me a rapid growth potion?” 

Kankuro shoved the remaining bacon into his mouth and swallowed it with an audible gulp, his cheeks bulging.

“Depends, what for?”

Gaara pursed his lips.

“A plant.”

Kankuro drummed his fingers on his chin for a moment. 

“I don’t know of any off the top of my head, but … “ 

Suddenly, his eyes brightened and he stuck up his index finger. “Oh! I have an idea, actually. I could probably combine a Swelling Solution with some Regermination Potion, and… “ 

He grabbed a quill from his satchel and began jotting notes on a napkin.

“Kankuro, those napkins are cloth,” Temari snapped.

“What, like they can’t afford more napkins? Look at this place!” Kankuro gestured with his quill at the Great Hall around them, its chandeliers swaying and a bright winter morning’s sun shining overhead. Flecks of ink spattered the side of Gaara’s face. He narrowed his eyes.

“Uh, sorry,” Kankuro mumbled. “Anyway, yeah, I have some ideas, as long as I can get the supplies for it. We don’t have too much in the way of potions ingredients on the ship. And I’ll need to borrow some cauldron space from one of the Slytherins.”

“Will you be able to do that?”

Kankuro threw his arms behind his head with a laugh.

“Oh yeah, no problem! The Slytherin babes love me!” 

“Because they want to get closer to Gaara,” Temari muttered.

Kankuro paused in his gesticulation. His forehead wrinkled.

“Do you really think-?”

“I’m sure the girls find you very attractive,” Gaara cut him off, before Kankuro could begin bemoaning his lack of success with the fairer sex.

“So,” Temari changed the subject with the skill of someone who knew her brothers far too well. “Potions. You’re not planning to use any of the spells Father’s been teaching you?”

Gaara turned back to his toast.

“I hope to get through the entire tournament without resorting to Dark Magic,” he said lowly.

Temari nodded, but her eyebrows were furrowed in faint concern.

All around them, students began clattering to their feet to depart for their first classes. The benches at the Great Hall’s long tables screeched as they were pushed back. 

Kankuro wrapped a handful of sausages in a napkin and shoved them into the pocket of his robes before Temari could raise her voice to object.

“Kankuro,” Gaara said, as the siblings departed the Hall, an island of security in the surging tide of students. “Thank you. I mean it.” 

Kankuro colored under the flaps of his wool hat. He kicked at the floor idly.

“Don’t mention it,” he said. “What are big brothers for?”


	3. The First Task

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning this chapter for scenes of mortal peril and references to past child abuse/neglect.

The morning of the first task dawned bright and bitterly cold. Gaara shivered alongside the other two Champions, seated on wooden chairs inside a white canvas tent that did nothing to interrupt the icy wind. 

Already a bit of slush had found its way into the collar of his cloak and was irritating him. He patted his robes self-consciously, making sure everything was still where he left it. The bottle of Kankuro’s Growth Draught hung heavily over his heart. 

The Headmasters of the three schools had already come and gone to take their seats at the judges’ table, Rasa with nothing but a stern nod in Gaara’s direction, an expression on his face that said, _Disappoint me and you’ll regret it._ Gaara had only looked at his shoes.

Now the only ones who remained in the tent were the three Champions and the two judges from the Ministry of Magic: the Minister of Magic himself, a ghostly pale, officious looking man in long, white robes that resembled nothing so much as a funeral shroud; and his sniveling assistant, who kept pushing his round-framed glasses up his nose and blinking owlishly at the three contestants. 

“Feeling nervous?” the assistant asked, raising one eyebrow under his mop of gray hair. 

Fuu, the Beauxbatons Champion, flipped over in her seat so her hair dangled towards the ground. A half-dozen bright barrettes of every color glinted in her uncombed hair. It was the fourth such ridiculous position she had assumed since the Champions had been sent to wait in the tent: first with her legs hanging over the arm of the chair, then sitting atop the back of it with her feet on the seat, then sitting backwards with her legs straddling the seatback. 

“I’m so excited!” she babbled. “I just can’t wait! I’m sure the three of us will be fast friends, aren’t you?”

The Hogwarts Champion, Sasuke Uchiha, turned away from her with a scoff, his arms crossed over his chest, a maneuver that put him into close proximity with Gaara’s seat. Whatever reason the Goblet of Fire had for choosing him to represent his school, it certainly wasn’t due to his charisma. Despite his affected air of indifference, there was a thin sheen of sweat at his hairline.

Fuu ignored him. Instead she leaned around Sasuke’s ankles so she was looking up into Gaara’s face. The ends of her hair trailed in the mud on the floor of the tent, but she didn’t seem bothered by it.

“What about you, Gaara, are you excited? Nervous? I can’t wait to show my new friends what I can do!”

Gaara stared at her for a long moment. At times it felt that the only people he had encountered since his arrival at Hogwarts had been enigmatic pools of limitless energy. 

“I’m fine,” he said at last.

“That’s great! Just great!” Fuu clapped her hands, then flipped over until she was sitting on her chair properly. She bounced both legs in excitement, practically vibrating in her seat. “Do you have any guesses about what the task might be? I hope it’s something dangerous!” 

“Of course it’ll be dangerous,” Sasuke muttered into the collar of his robes, still staring away from them at the white panels of the tent. “There’s no entertainment to it if we aren’t risking our necks.” 

Gaara chose not to respond. 

A moment later, the Minister brushed his hands together brusquely. His slitted eyes scanned over the Champions, lingering for a long moment on Sasuke’s face. 

“It’s time,” he said, drawing out the _s_. “Champions, Kabuto, follow me.” 

His assistant scrambled to his feet and followed him out of the tent. The three champions trailed behind them with Fuu in front and Gaara taking up the rear. 

Stepping into the winter sun, Gaara blinked and shaded his eyes with his hands. The field was dominated by a massive stone structure that seemed to have appeared overnight. The walls were thick, gray slabs overgrown with moss and ivy. It was as if the monolith had been pulled from some ancient ruin and dropped directly onto the Hogwarts grounds. 

On the far side of the field stood temporary wooden stands, overflowing with a cheering crowd. Gaara squinted, hoping to make out the shapes of his siblings in the Durmstrang cheering section, but the faces of the gathered spectators were too far away to be distinct, a seething mass of bodies and colors. 

In front of the stands sat the judges’ table, containing the Headmasters of the three schools and two empty chairs reserved for the Ministry officials. Although Gaara couldn’t quite see their expressions, he could feel the tension radiating from his father’s seat. Rasa’s high-collared black robes shadowed his face. 

“Stay here,” hissed the Minister. He and his assistant departed the group and made their way to the judges’ table. As they did so, a massive banner unfurled itself over the Hogwarts cheering section. On it was a moving image of Sasuke tilting his head back and smirking haughtily, his arms crossed in the same position he assumed as he stood between Gaara and Fuu. A great cheer went up from the Slytherin section of the stands, and the rest of the Hogwarts students clapped and shouted along. 

From the right side of the stands, where Gryffindor house was seated, arose a clamor. Gaara saw a blond wizard jump to his feet with his wand extended. 

Sparks flew towards the banner, and the image of Sasuke suddenly uncrossed his arms and began to pick his nose. Raucous laughter bubbled out of the Gryffindor section as the blond wizard was tackled to the ground by a bearded teacher. 

Gaara looked over to see Sasuke scowling.

Ignorant of the chaos behind him, the Minister stepped forward and tapped his throat with his wand.

“Good morning students, teachers, and honored guests,” he began in his sibilant voice, magically amplified. “It is my honor to introduce to you the first task of the Triwizard Tournament.”

The students in the stands cheered all the more loudly, a great roar overtaking the crowd. The stands shook with the stomping of feet and the clapping of hands. 

A bead of sweat ran down Gaara’s neck. He clenched his bloodless fingers.

To the Minister’s left, Kabuto stepped forward and waved his wand. Above the maze, a shimmering image formed - a magical projection of the three Champions standing side-by-side. Gaara looked up into his own pale face and schooled his nervous expression to neutrality. 

“Champions, if you will, go to your assigned starting points.” 

Three more wizards in Ministry robes materialized behind the Champions. 

Gaara found himself steered to the right side of the maze by a portly man with a shock of red hair, his expression stern and his hand heavy on Gaara’s shoulder. Sasuke and Fuu were led off in different directions, similarly accompanied by a tall, dark-skinned man with muscular arms and a petite woman whose orange headscarf shaded her eyes. 

“The first task will test our Champions’ daring, their cunning, and their courage in the face of the unknown.”

The image projected above the field shimmered and transformed into an overview of the labyrinth. When Gaara attempted to focus on the passageways within, the image distorted and shook in his mind’s eye; it had been charmed to be undecipherable. 

“Each Champion will find their way to the center of the labyrinth. They will defeat the beast within and retrieve the pennant with the crest of their school.”

From the center of the maze came a great roaring and hissing, but the shape of the beast was rendered only in shadow. The students in the crowd let out a simultaneous, breathless gasp. 

“The first Champion to emerge from the maze with their school’s pennant will be the winner of this task.”

The image cut back to the champions. Gaara noted Sasuke’s steely glare - he had been informed of the task ahead of time, then. Fuu began hopping from foot to foot in excitement. Her vibrant, slightly off-kilter grin rendered her unreadable. 

The heavyset man released Gaara’s shoulder and stepped forward to the wall of the maze. With a tap of his wand, a portal eased open in the stone wall with a great scraping sound. 

“On my whistle,” the Minister’s voice rang in Gaara’s ears. 

Gaara braced his hands on his knees and took a deep, steadying breath. 

The whistle sounded.

Gaara darted into the opening in the wall. 

The stone grumbled closed behind him. 

“_Lumos,_” he murmured. 

The stone passage around him flickered with light and shadow. The air inside the labyrinth was dank and as still as a tomb, smelling of raw dirt and wet fur. He looked to his right and left; the passageway stretched out to either side of him, terminating in darkness. Along the moss-covered walls, hollows of blackness hinted at more branching passages. In the distance, Gaara heard the steady _drip, drip_ of water. 

Gaara bent down and tapped the sole of each of his shoes, muttering, “_Theseus._” 

He took a few tentative steps forwards and backwards. In his wake, his footprints lit up in glowing gold. The charmed traces of his steps would only last an hour; hopefully it would be enough time for him to retrace his steps and not become lost within the winding of the maze. 

Closing his eyes, he recalled an afternoon sitting in front of the fireplace with Kankuro. Gaara remembered very little from his early childhood: most of his memories were a haze of bloodshed and terror. But he had a few bright lights, here and there, specks of color and warmth that lingered with him. 

Kankuro had been sprawled out on his stomach, tracing through a hand-drawn maze with a short-nibbed child’s quill. Gaara had been young enough that he still clutched his stuffed Bugbear to his chest. 

“What’s that?” he had asked.

“It’s a maze.”

“Can I try?” Even in his memory, his voice had warbled, timid and shy.

“It’s only for big kids, you’re too little to play with it,” Kankuro had sneered. “You’ll just mess it up.”

“I won’t, I promise.”

“Okay, fine,” Kankuro had relented, passing him the quill. “Here’s the trick - just keep the quill on the right-hand side. That way, even if you have to double back, you’ll always find the center.”

Gaara’s eyes blinked open. Tears stung the corners of his eyes; he blamed it on the shock of his wandlight. Of course, after that, father had caught him and Kankuro playing and had locked him in the basement with no supper. 

Gaara shook his head sharply to clear it. 

He reached out his right hand and touched the labyrinth wall, the stone cold and slippery beneath his fingertips. He turned and began to walk down the right-hand passageway.

He wanted to hurry, to be the first Champion to reach the center of the maze and confront the Chimaera, but he had no way of telling how complex the maze would be. He was far from the most athletic of wizards: he lacked the lean musculature of Sasuke or the endless energy of Fuu. So the best he could do was move steadily, walking as quickly as he was able without breaking out into a full run. 

The maze wound in and out of itself endlessly. Gaara poked his head around every corner before stepping fully out, looking for traps or hexes or pitfalls. He found nothing but more cold gray stone and endless dampness. It seemed the maze was meant to be the challenge all on its own - to wear the Champions down into a sense of fatigue and complacency before they encountered the beast. Gaara lost all sense of time as he walked, his eyes focused on the few feet visible ahead in his wandlight. He encountered dead end after dead end, but still he forged on. He never let his hand falter from the right side of the wall.

His feet began to drag and his breath felt heavy in his lungs. The tips of his fingers went numb and shivery. 

Then, he heard it. Just through the stone wall - a faint purring, almost a drone. Alertness shocked up his spine. He picked up his step, racing faster and further. The rumbling grew louder, thunderous. 

He rounded a corner at a dead run. 

There, slumbering in the center of an open chamber, he saw it: the Chimaera. The stone room was lit up from within with torches in brackets lining the walls. The animal’s maned head rested on its hooved feet. A great, whuffling snore tore from its open mouth and blew Gaara’s hair back from his face. The beast’s breath stank like rotten meat and sulfur. In its sleep, its serpentine tail lashed, long spikes of bone cutting the air. It seemed not to have noticed Gaara’s presence at all.

Against the back wall dangled three pennants, one with each school’s crest. Durmstrang’s hung in the middle, blood red and emblazoned with the double-headed eagle. The eagles’ eyes seemed to watch him as he trod quietly into the room, extinguishing his wand with a whisper. 

Gaara touched his robe pocket, right over his racing heart. 

He stared, wide-eyed, around the perimeter of the room, counting in his head. Six torches: three on either side, and the Chimaera taking up most of the space on the floor. The room was far too bright. He had two choices: try to sneak past the beast without waking it, or try to snuff the torches before the Chimaera could attack him. 

Gaara gritted his teeth, fingers going numb on his wand. He took one silent, cautious step forward. The beast didn’t stir. 

He settled upon the third choice. 

He stepped as close as possible to the first torch on the right side of the room. Cupping his hand beneath it, he pointed his wand and whispered, “_Aguamenti_”. A trickle of water leaked from the tip of his wand and extinguished the torch with a hiss. 

He looked out of the corner of his left eye - the Chimaera hadn’t stirred. 

He wiped the palmful of sooty water on the front of his robes and tiptoed towards the second torch. He was fully within the room now. The Chimaera’s stinking breath gusted hotly across his ankles. Its massive tail thumped dully on the chamber’s stone floor as if in a dream.

With another whisper, the second torch extinguished. Gaara wiped more water and grime down the side of his robes.

He stepped forward once more, towards the third torch in the back of the room - the one flanking the pennants. 

The beast chuffed. Gaara froze with his hand on the wall. He watched the Chimaera warily out of the corner of his eye, not daring to even breathe. The beast smacked its drooling lips and yawned, exposing razor-sharp teeth. 

Then, with a huff, it settled its nose back between its forelegs and let out another rattling snore. 

Gaara exhaled as silently as he could and made his way to the third torch. The Durmstrang pennant was just ahead of him, no more than a few hands’ breadths away. 

Again, he pointed his wand to the torch. Again, he whispered, “_Aguamenti_.” Again, a thin stream of water escaped his wand and doused the torch. He caught the water in his cupped palm, but- 

Before he could move, a trickle of water flowed over the back side of the torch’s sconce. Gaara jerked his open palm forward in an attempt to catch the water, but the water already in his hand slopped to the floor. 

The chamber’s air rang with the wet slap of water puddling on the ground. 

There was a shuffling noise behind him. Gaara craned his head ever so slowly over his shoulder. 

Behind him, the Chimaera had just raised its head from between its hooves. It blinked one round, yellow eye. 

For a long, silent moment they stared at one another. Time seemed to stand still. Not so much as a breeze cut the chamber air. 

Then, of a moment, both broke into motion. 

The Chimaera lunged. 

Gaara dove to the right with his wand extended.

“Aguamenti!” 

A massive torrent of water exploded from the end of his wand and obliterated the flames of the torches on the far side of the chamber, casting the room into blackness. 

The beast roared. Its massive tail collided with the walls, claws scrabbling at stone as it ran towards him.

Operating on sound and instinct alone, Gaara threw himself face-down on the chamber floor. His trousers ripped at the knee and his elbows barked against the stone. There was a shattering noise and Gaara felt a stinging pain in his chest.

_Perfect,_ he thought. 

Still scrambling away from the beast on hands and knees, he dug into his robe pocket and tore out a satchel.

The beast growled, its jaws snapping. 

He upended the bag in an instant. Seeds shook loose and scattered into the puddles of Growth Draught that had spilled when the vial around Gaara’s neck broke. 

Suddenly, there was a great creaking noise, as if a thousand ancient doors were opening at once. The Chimaera yelped. Gaara found himself buffeted upwards on thorny vines. 

The Devil’s Snare had grown just as planned. 

He could hear the beast thrashing against the vines, which shrieked and lashed it tighter and tighter. The harder the beast struggled, the more tightly the tendrils wrapped around it. Vines surrounded Gaara, too, restraining him at the wrists and ankles. A thorned appendage slapped at his face, and his lip became wet with blood. 

Gaara willed himself limp. In short order, the pressure around his limbs eased. A moment later, he found himself lying flat on the chamber floor.

Above him, in a dark and warbling mire, he heard the Chimaera groaning and roaring. He still needed to act quickly.

“_Lumos_,” he whispered. A tiny ball of light illuminated around him. 

The Snare hissed and drew back, forming a narrow passageway in front of him, avoiding the light. 

Wobbling serpentine shadows and eerie groans surrounded him as he crawled forward toward the back of the chamber. His skinned knees scraped the craggy stone floors. His wandlight bobbed ahead of him like a will o’ wisp, drawing him closer and closer to his goal. 

Finally, he touched a cold stone wall. 

Ever so slowly, he eased his wand hand upwards to where the pennant hung. Behind him, there was a snapping sound as the Chimaera freed itself from a few of the vines, then another frustrated howl as it was pinned down again. 

Gaara’s fingers brushed the bottom of the pennant. He seized the fabric and tugged until the pennant came loose. He stuffed it down the front of his robes and began crawling along the side of the chamber, avoiding the center where the beast still fought. 

After what felt like hours, he found himself back at the chamber’s entrance. Long strands of Devil’s Snare trailed into the passageway and partially obscured his glowing footprints. Kankuro had been more than a bit ambitious. 

Gaara heaved himself to his feet, breathing heavily. The chamber was still a riot of noise, the Chimaera and the plant seemingly evenly matched. Gaara cocked his head. Coming down the hallway, he could have sworn he heard footsteps.

He wasn’t willing to make the task too easy for the others. 

“_Incendio!_” 

The chamber burst into flames. The Devil’s Snare reared back with a shriek.

Gaara turned tail and ran like hell. The roaring of the Chimaera followed him out.

* * *

Gaara’s footprints were just starting to fade to a dull yellow when he finally reached the entrance of the labyrinth. He slapped both hands against the stone walls and fell forward into the grass outside. 

Blinking in the light, he heard the noise of the cheering crowd flood in around him. 

“And our first Champion to return from the labyrinth is Gaara of Durmstrang!” the Minister’s voice reverberated in his ears. 

Gaara stumbled to his feet and drew the pennant from the collar of his robes. He held it aloft in shaking hands. Looking up, he saw his own pale face projected back at him. He looked a mess - hair disheveled, a long scratch along the side of his mouth, soot-stained and water-logged and terrified. He attempted a grin; even to himself, his reflection’s smile looked feeble. 

The Durmstrang cheering section took up singing their school song. Sparks in the shape of his name flashed over the stands. 

Gaara’s eyes panned over to the judges’ table. His father sat with his arms crossed over his chest. Their eyes met, and the Headmaster tilted his head back in a half-nod of approval.

Gaara collapsed forward with his hands on his knees, chest heaving. 

The same overweight, red-headed man from the Ministry led him over to a chair just a few meters from the judges' table. Gaara fell into it, legs akimbo, fingers clutching the Durmstrang pennant like a sweaty lifeline. Behind him, he could hear the crowd chanting his name. 

"You gonna wave to your fans, lad?" the Ministry wizard gruffed. 

Gaara barely had the energy to shake his head. 

"Typical," the man grunted, and he stalked off to resume his post watching the labyrinth walls.

Gaara tilted his head back and, through eyes hazing over with exhaustion, settled in to watch the remainder of the task play out on the massive image overhead. Though the projection was soundless, the Minister kept up with a rapid-fire commentary throughout. 

It seemed Gaara had been mistaken when he thought he heard footsteps through the labyrinth walls, because as he watched, Sasuke was just arriving at the entrance to the Chimaera's chamber. His cold eyes sized up the flames within, and, mouthing a spell, a massive jet of fire shot from his wand, larger than any _Incendio_ charm Gaara had ever cast. 

"A potentially fatal misstep by young Mr. Uchiha," the Minister rasped. "As most sixth years should know, the Chimaera is born of fire, and dragon's blood courses through its veins. That will only serve to anger it."

And indeed, through the flames, the beast tilted its head back and let out a silent roar so powerful the stone walls of the chamber shook. Yet Sasuke seemed undeterred. With a scowl on his face, he tapped his wand to his own head. His body lit up with blue light. 

Then, he dove headfirst into the fire.

The crowd gasped as one.

"Is he bloody crazy?" One voice from the crowd carried over the rest.

Gaara bit his bloodied lip. He would recognize the Firewalker's Spell anywhere. That was old magic, and rare. Where on earth would a Hogwarts student have learned such a thing?

Just as Gaara had the thought, Sasuke stood up in the center of the flames, triumphant, with the Hogwarts pennant clasped in one hand. Firelight flickered in his eyes and uplit his face; he looked utterly mad. 

With a crazed smile, he ducked past the Chimaera's snapping jaws towards the chamber's entrance. The beast pursued him, but he moved as if he were lighter than air and faster than the wind, his body flickering between one shadow and the next. At the entrance to the chamber, he paused and looked over his shoulder, a cocky grin on his face. The beast swiped at him with one massive hoof, but he ducked it effortlessly, laughing-

And missed the tail coming to swipe at him from the other side.

In an instant, Sasuke went airborne, caught across the middle by the Chimaera's spiked tail. The smug expression on his face transformed to abject terror as his body collided with the far wall of the chamber and slid to the floor.

Dark stains expanded on the front of his robes.

In the stands, someone shrieked.

Behind him, Gaara heard the Headmasters jumping to their feet. Kabuto shouted some unheard order, but Gaara couldn't move. He was staring at the blood pooling sickly beneath Sasuke's body.

As he stared, the image flickered. The crowd began muttering, confused, as the projection split into two. 

On the right, Sasuke's body lay slumped against the stone wall, the flames and the Chimaera stalking ever closer.

And on the left, Fuu rounded the corner to the Chimaera's chamber, a fiercely determined expression on her fine-boned face. 

"Get her out of there!" shouted a man with a thick accent. Dimly, through his panic, Gaara recognized the voice as the Beauxbatons' Headmaster, Shibuki.

A half dozen ashen-faced witches and wizards rushed past Gaara on either side, only to be brought to a halt mere meters from the labyrinth walls. The air shimmered as they collided with it: an invisible wall had been formed around the labyrinth. The three Ministry wizards stood within the barrier with their wands outstretched, their backs to the teachers. 

"Let us in!" yelled one bearded professor in a Gryffindor scarf - the same one who had tackled the disorderly student earlier, Gaara realized. His words were muffled by the pipe clenched between his teeth and smoke puffed out of either corner of his mouth like an angry dragon. He slammed a fist against the barrier fruitlessly.

The Minister of Magic cleared his throat, his voice carrying over the field and stands.

"The task must go on," he said, his voice a sinister whisper. "Let's see what the Champions can do in the face of a little adversity."

"But they're in danger!" screamed a dark-haired professor, her Ravenclaw hat falling askew. She fired a charm at the barrier, only for it to dissipate in a fizz of electricity. 

"Nothing in life is without a little risk," the Minister hissed.

The professor rounded on him, fury in her eyes.

"Look!" a girl shouted from the crowd.

Gaara looked up. Above the labyrinth, the two projections had merged back into one.

Fuu stood, bathed in blue light and haloed with flame, her tiny body bowed under Sasuke's weight. She had one of his arms thrown over her shoulder, her expression incendiary.

The Chimaera dove at them both, but Fuu flourished her wand and-

The image went white in a blaze of sparkling, blinding light. The crowd shielded their eyes with a simultaneous gasp. 

When Gaara's vision returned, he blinked blearily at the image of Fuu dragging Sasuke's body down a hallway one-handed. In her other hand was a spool of yarn that she wrapped around her arm as she trudged. She _had_ been aware of the first task, then.

The crowd sat breathless on the edge of their seats. A trail of blood still lingered behind Sasuke's body as she walked.

Then, he twitched. The crowd exhaled all together. Sasuke blinked, squinting. His hands patted at his robes. He looked over his shoulder at Fuu. 

He lunged forward away from her grasp. 

Fuu spun around. The hand that wasn't holding the collar of Sasuke's robes snatched at the singed ends of his hair and hauled him upright. 

The two erupted into a pantomime of an argument, Sasuke scrambling to get back to the Chimaera's chamber and Fuu dragging him backwards towards the maze's exit with all her might. Although the projection was utterly silent, from the expressions on their faces, Gaara could imagine their words. 

Outside the maze's barrier, one of the teachers tittered into his fist, quickly disguising it as a cough. 

Quick as a flash, Fuu drew her wand and bashed it against Sasuke's head. He collapsed in a heap.

"_Levicorpus_," she mouthed, and Sasuke's body floated up behind her as if it, too, were attached to her skein of yarn.

The Ministry wizards around the perimeter of the labyrinth dropped their wands. The barrier trembled and fell.

"Look at that," murmured the Minister. "Such ingenuity. Such _daring_. An impressive performance, no doubt, from Miss Fuu."

It seemed just a few moments before Fuu and her unconscious passenger were bursting through the labyrinth wall and back into the outside world. 

With a flick of her wand, she deposited Sasuke at the foot of the the white-haired man who had refereed the Quidditch match, the Slytherin Head of House, to judge by the green scarf wrapped around his face. 

Then, she pivoted on one foot to begin marching back to the entrance to the maze, only to be restrained by the Beauxbatons headmaster pinning her arms behind her back.

“But I haven’t got the pennant yet!” she shouted, struggling against the Headmaster’s grip. 

“And that brings us to the conclusion of the first task,” the Minister’s voice echoed. 

The three Ministry wizards waved their wands in a complex pattern and, with a great creaking sigh of stone against stone, the labyrinth began to sink into the earth. Fuu sagged forward in defeat. 

Meanwhile, on the ground, Sasuke began to stir. He blinked hazily, sitting up on his elbows. His eyes settled upon Fuu. 

He started to lurch forward at her, just before his body fell, stiff as a board, upon the ground. The school nurse stood behind him, her chest heaving in her white robes and a furious expression on her face. The traces of hazy white light from a Body Bind curse still lingered around the tip of her outstretched wand. 

“That was interference!” Sasuke yelled, muffled through his clenched teeth. His face was contorted into a mask of rage and his body shook against the magical binds, seemingly powered by indignance alone. 

“You can lodge a formal complaint after Madame Tsunade has bandaged you up,” the Slytherin Head of House said in a bored tone. He swished his wand and Sasuke’s bound body drifted up into the air, bobbing behind the nurse as she stormed off the field to the Champions’ tent, now clearly visible beyond the space where the labyrinth had once stood. 

A few moments later, there was the sound of a body collapsing into the chair to Gaara’s right. He turned and found Fuu slumped over next to him. 

“I can’t believe I didn’t get the pennant,” she groaned. “Did you get yours at least?”

Gaara nodded and held up the soot-streaked fabric.

Fuu grinned at him. “Well done you!” She clapped him on the shoulder, sending his body rocking forward. “You must have been terrifically brave in there!”

Gaara shook his head barely, staring at the snow beneath his feet. He tugged his scarf a bit tighter around his neck.

“I wouldn’t have done what you did,” he said quietly, after a while. “You’re the brave one.” 

Fuu threw her head back and laughed. 

“Well thank you, friend,” she chortled. “That makes me feel loads better. Do you think I’ll get any points off it?” 

Gaara turned slowly in his seat to regard the judges’ table. A Silencing Charm had been cast over it, its bubble shining faintly in the sunlight overhead. Within, a heated argument was unfolding. Shibuki struck the judge’s table with a fist, his face ruddy and a vein popping in his forehead. Rasa sat back with his arms crossed over his chest (self-consciously, Gaara moved to uncross his own), but the steely glint in his eyes told Gaara that he was simmering with barely restrained anger. Meanwhile, the Professor tapped his wand deliberately with each carefully chosen word. The Minister and his assistant sat turned towards each other with haughty expressions on their faces. Though their lips weren’t moving, they seemed to be having a silent conversation through glances alone. 

To the side of the silenced bubble, a copse of Hogwarts professors stood in tense discussion. The bearded professor had his arm around the trembling Ravenclaw Head of House, whose shoulders were shaking as she sobbed. Plumes of smoke drifted over their group from the professor’s pipe. A stout man - a dwarf from the look of him - gesticulated wildly with sparks fluttering from the end of his wand.

“Yes,” Gaara said finally. “I think you will.” 

They sat there in tense silence for a while, watching the tableau unfold. After a short time, the Slytherin Head of House rejoined the group of Hogwarts professors and their discussion fell to whispers. Moments later, the chair to Gaara’s left was dragged sharply away and Sasuke sat heavily in it, smelling strongly of an herbal poultice that Gaara immediately recognized as calendula paste. 

“Feeling better?” Fuu asked, craning around Gaara to look at Sasuke.

He turned away from her with a huff, glaring off into the distance. 

“No thanks to you,” he muttered.

“_All_ thanks to me, I’d say!” she objected.

Sasuke’s head whipped back to stare at her, hatred burning in his dark eyes. Gaara sat back quietly in his seat. 

“I could’ve handled it myself,” Sasuke said through gritted teeth. “You got in my way.”

“Sure, great load of good you would’ve done yourself, half-unconscious from blood loss!”

“You’re the one who _knocked_ me unconscious!”

“Would you have rather I left you to get your leg bitten off? Excellent chance you’d have stood then, with only three limbs! The first amputee Champion of the Triwizard Tournament, Sasuke Uchiha!”

The clearing of the Minister’s magically amplified throat interrupted their debate. 

“The judges have reached their decision,” he announced in an eerily calm voice. “Champions, please come forward.”

On shaky legs, Gaara and the others approached the judges’ table. Shibuki seemed to have been placated, the heat draining from his face. The expression on Professor Hiruzen’s face was one of withdrawn resignment; he seemed to be engaged in a deep internal debate. Only Rasa’s face had not changed at all, still radiating cool indifference that barely concealed a roiling undercurrent of discontent. 

“Although he failed to retrieve his school’s pennant, this wizard showed incredible daring and one of the most impressive uses of the Fireball Charm I’ve seen in my career. Despite interference from another contestant- ”

Fuu snorted and stuck out her tongue.

“- he still attempted to return to the maze to complete the task. For this, we award Sasuke Uchiha 15 points.”

The Hogwarts students broke into a raucous cheer. The banner with Sasuke’s face on it flapped over the stands. Sasuke stared hard at the ground and did not uncross his arms. He dug the toe of one boot into the cold mud beneath his feet. 

“Though this witch did not complete the task’s objectives-”

“Well that gives it away right there, doesn’t it?” Fuu muttered out of the corner of her mouth. Gaara contained a wry grin. 

“- she exemplified the principles of courage, self-sacrifice, and an iron will. Her use of the Radiance Hex astounded all of the judges. For this, we award Fuu 25 points.”

The Beauxbatons students shouted and stomped their feet, clapping. Fuu took an elaborate bow, her hair again trailing indifferently in the mud, then stood with her arms raised. The Beauxbatons students screamed all the louder. Shibuki looked on at her with a proud grin on his face.

“And finally, for being the first to complete the task, and for being the only Champion to successfully retrieve his school’s pennant, we award Gaara the full 50 points.”

The Durmstrang contingent of the crowd erupted into cheers. There was a distinctive whoop that Gaara immediately recognized as his brother. He gave a half smile. 

In the Hufflepuff section of the stands, a lone student jumped to his feet. Black hair reflected in the wintry sunlight. The student gave a shout that Gaara couldn’t quite understand. Gaara bit the inside of his cheek, the back of his neck heating up - surely due to the piercing noon sun. 

When he looked up at the judges’ table, his father gave him another solitary nod.

* * *

“The pennant contains the instructions for the next task,” the Minister’s assistant explained, once the Champions had been herded back to the white tent to debrief. “Gaara, as the only Champion who secured his school’s pennant, you’ll have the advantage.” 

Fuu and Sasuke looked at him with frank jealousy in their eyes. Gaara’s fingers clenched around the pennant even tighter. 

When they were finally dismissed, Gaara’s shoulders sagged with exhaustion. He felt like a ghost on two feet, barely keeping himself aloft on the long trudge back to the Durmstrang ship. He hardly even heard Temari and Kankuro’s congratulations, shrugging them off on his way to his room.

He collapsed, face-down on his bed with his robes still on and slept right through dinner, too exhausted to even dream.


	4. The Invitation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, shit, I almost forgot it was Tuesday!
> 
> Just as a heads-up, I've placed Durmstrang in Siberia for the purposes of this fic. I know that's not its canonical location, but it makes more sense that way.

A week later, Gaara left his father’s office and headed for the common room, his scar stinging only faintly. Even from the hall, he could hear the room was awash in giggling whispers. As he crossed the threshold of the door, a crowd of eager female faces turned to stare at him.

“What’s going on?” he whispered to Kankuro out of the corner of his mouth.

“Check it out.” Kankuro stepped aside and threw his arm wide. The gathered bodies parted as Gaara stepped forward hesitantly. 

Hovering over the middle of the common room floor were floating, gilded letters in English and Russian:

_ **The students of Durmstrang Institute are formally invited to participate in the Yule Ball, to be held on the 22nd day of December, in the Hogwarts Great Hall. Formal robes required.** _

Gaara swallowed. He felt the other students’ eyes burning on his back.

A crooked thumping sound came down the hallway behind him.

“What’s all this commotion?” Rasa’s voice carried through the common room. His uneven steps came to a halt. “Ah- ” He paused. “- _that_.” 

He clapped his hands once, sharply, drawing the attention of all the gathered students. 

“Enough goggling, get back to your studies,” he snapped. “Gaara, my office,” he added in a lower voice. 

Gaara turned to stare at him.

“But we just- ” he started.

“Now,” the Headmaster demanded, and spun on his heel to begin limping back down the hall to his office. Gaara followed reluctantly.

When the door was once again locked behind him, Gaara remained standing with his back against the door. The red quill and its parchment had been put away, but his shoulders only relaxed minutely. 

“Have you decided who your date to the Ball will be?” Rasa asked in a soft voice. The tone was strange, one Gaara rarely heard directed at him, and it put him immediately on edge.

“No,” he replied, barely moving his lips. 

“There are a number of eligible young women in your year,” Rasa continued. “Matsuri, Ameno, Yukata…. Any of them would make a fine choice.”

“They would have to agree to go with me first.”

Rasa smiled, a slick, greasy thing that didn’t quite reach his eyes. Despite the absence of the quill, Gaara’s forehead tingled. 

“I’m familiar with their parents,” Rasa said, with an odd tilt to his head. “I’m certain they wouldn’t dare say no to my son.”

Gaara’s breathing went shallow. His fingers itched to drum nervously against his sides but he held himself utterly still. The queer, false smile didn’t fall from his father’s face.

“I’ll think on it,” Gaara said finally.

“Be sure that you do.”

* * *

A few nights later at dinner, Kankuro leaned over his plateful of potatoes.

“You gonna finish that?” he asked, jabbing his fork towards an untouched roll on Gaara’s plate.

Gaara shook his head mutely. 

“You haven’t even finished your own,” Temari huffed, as Kankuro speared the roll and transferred it to his own plate. 

“So, know who you’re gonna ask to the Ball yet?” Kankuro grinned, tearing the roll in half with his teeth. He grabbed the butter dish from the middle of the table and added a sizeable pat of butter to the remaining bread. 

Gaara’s hand stilled on his fork. It would be so easy, he knew, to simply go along with his father’s suggestion. To prove for once that he was more than just the powerful misfit his father thought he was. To make this one small concession and show he would not put his family to shame. 

“Don’t hassle him, Kankuro,” Temari snapped. “He’ll make his decision in his own time. Isn’t that right, Gaara?”

Gaara continued to stare at his plate. Suddenly, his remaining potatoes didn’t look very appetizing at all. His stomach rolled, chest growing tight. 

“Listen, all I’m saying is all the good girls are getting snatched up quick. If you wait around too long, all that’re gonna be left are the ugly ones.”

Temari’s nose wrinkled.

“I don’t have a date yet either, Kankuro, so what does that say about me?” She set to cutting her steak with a vengeance. Her knife shrieked across the plate. 

Gaara looked up. Across the table, one of the Slytherin girls batted her eyelashes at him and sighed. 

“I mean- ” Kankuro stammered, paling. “There’s still _plenty_ of pretty girls. Some of ‘em are even waiting for you to make your choice and all, but- ”

A great peal of laughter broke through the Hall, coming from the direction of the Hufflepuff table. Gaara glanced over his shoulder and saw a familiar smile glinting in the candlelight, head thrown back around a laugh. 

“I know who I’m going to ask,” he said quietly. 

Temari dropped her fork. 

“Really?”

“Who is it?” Kankuro slurred around a mouthful of potato. Sour cream dribbled down his chin and splatted onto his lap. 

“Rock Lee.”

Temari’s lips pursed in distaste. Kankuro choked on his drink, spluttering.

“What, the eyebrow guy?” 

Gaara nodded, decisive. 

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Temari interjected. “Father will be upset. I don’t want him to- ” 

“Father can’t do anything to me until after I’ve won the tournament,” Gaara said softly, setting down his fork and knife. He picked up his napkin from his lap and folded it, laying it across his plate. 

“What, you’re going now?!” Kankuro’s jaw gaped open.

“Oh, please don’t ask him in front of the whole Great Hall….” Temari protested. “What if he says no? You’ll be so embarrassed.”

A few seats down, a Slytherin student with long, dark hair pulled into a smooth ponytail gave a snort. 

“I doubt he’ll say no,” he said, in flawless Russian. His light eyes met Gaara’s and he gave a knowing wink. 

Gaara pushed back from the table; the bench’s feet screeched as he stood. He left Kankuro’s bewildered babbling behind him and made his way to the Hufflepuff table. 

The Hufflepuffs’ raucous voices fell to a hush as he came to stand behind Lee’s seat. Noticing the sudden quiet, Lee looked over his shoulder and startled when he recognized Gaara. 

“Gaara!” he said, that familiar broad smile breaking over his face. “Did you come to sit with us? Shove over, Tenten- ” He gestured at the girl with twin buns sitting next to him. “- I’ll make you some space.”

“No.” 

“Oh,” Lee’s smile started to fall. “Then, did you need to borrow my books again? I’m happy to- ” 

“Will you go to the Yule Ball with me?” Gaara interrupted him. 

The Hufflepuff students started muttering to one another. Lee froze with his words halfway out of his lips. 

Gaara waited. His whole body was fraught with tension. Gone was the boldness with which he’d crossed the Great Hall, and all that remained was the pinprick feeling of dozens of eyes staring him down. 

Lee blinked rapidly. His lower lip started to wobble. Gradually, his dark eyes filled with moisture. 

Gaara’s heart plummeted. 

“Nevermind,” he said. “I’ll just- ” He made to turn away. 

“Of course!” Lee shouted. Suddenly, Gaara felt himself swept up in a crushing hug. His feet left the floor as he was lifted into the air by two muscular arms. “Yes, of course I’ll be your date to the Yule Ball!”

Gaara froze in shock. A damp spot started blooming in his hair. Lee sniffled dramatically. Behind him, a couple of the Hufflepuffs started to giggle. 

“Please put me down,” he muttered. His ribs creaked. 

Lee set him down in a hurry. Large, dark eyes searched his face for any sign of discomfort. Lee’s large hands started patting down his robes and smoothing his hair.

“Sorry,” Lee said. “Sometimes I let my emotions get the better of me! Are you all right?”

Gaara offered a small smile. 

“I’m fine,” he said, and meant it. “I’ll see you on the night of the ball?”

Lee nodded enthusiastically. 

“Meet me at our common room!” he said. “I’ll write down some directions- oh, where is my quill…?” A quill and parchment found their way into his hand. “Thank you, Tenten,” he murmured absently, jotting down some notes and shoving them into Gaara’s hands. 

“Thank you,” Gaara said. He carefully folded the note and gingerly placed it in the inside pocket of his robes. “See you then.” He turned to walk back to the Slytherin table.

“Oh, you’re not staying to eat with us?” Lee called.

Gaara shook his head. “My brother and sister are waiting for me.”

“Oh.” The disappointment in Lee’s voice was palpable. Something squeezed around Gaara’s throat. “Maybe another time?”

Gaara glanced up at the Slytherin table, where no one would meet his eyes, then looked down at the floor.

“Maybe,” Gaara lied, and nodded as he walked away. 

“Wow,” Kankuro breathed, when Gaara had returned to his seat at the Slytherin table. “So he’s really into you, huh?”

Gaara shrugged and unfolded his napkin, laying it back in his lap. He was suddenly starving, and those potatoes had never looked better. 

Across the table, the Slytherin girl had her head in her hands. Her friend rubbed her back, whispering softly to her, and looked up at Gaara with a glare. Gaara selected another roll from the center of the table and buttered it lavishly. 

“That went about as well as could be expected,” Temari drawled, a quirk of amusement to her lip. “I’m happy for you.”

Gaara grinned a tiny, secret grin at his own lap and tucked back into his food.

From behind him, at the Head Table, he felt a pair of eyes boring into the back of his head. His scar prickled.

* * *

Gaara sat on his bed staring at the pennant spread across his lap. The red eyes of the double-headed eagle stared back at him. He sighed. 

“Any luck so far?” Kankuro asked, head peeking around the door. Temari’s blonde hair appeared above him in the crack at the door frame. 

“A few things,” Gaara replied, gesturing them inside. He had tried Revealing Charms, invisible ink solutions, cryptography, and interpreting symbolism, all to no avail. 

His siblings took up their customary seats on the bedspread. Temari took the pennant and ran it between her fingers. 

“You know,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about something the Minister said during the match… ‘The Chimaera is born of fire, and dragon’s blood runs through its veins’ … Have you tried heating it up?”

Gaara shook his head. 

“Well, it’s worth a shot, innit?” Kankuro elbowed past her and held out his wand. “_Incendio!_” A tiny jet of fire shot from his wand and overtop the pennant.

Temari jerked back in alarm, hands clutching her ponytails.

“Warn me first!” she shouted. 

“Look,” Gaara said, before Kankuro could respond. 

On the surface of the pennant, silvery letters bubbled to the surface, as if made out of mercury. Gaara squinted. 

“Are those…?” Kankuro started.

“Runes,” Temari confirmed. “Kankuro, hand me a quill.” She quickly started copying them down onto a scrap of parchment. As the fabric cooled, the Runes sank back into the pennant and vanished. 

“Do you recognize them?” Gaara asked.

Temari shook her head. “No, but I can look into it….”

Gaara took the parchment from her hand and tucked it into his pocket.

“I’ll take care of it,” he said. “It’s my task after all.”

Kankuro groaned, sinking his face into his hands with a pout.

“It’s so unfair,” he whined. “How did I end up being the only sibling who isn’t a genius?”

“You have other talents,” Gaara reassured him.

“Yeah,” Temari sneered. “I’ve never smelled any farts as rank as yours.”

Kankuro made to tackle her across the bed, but Gaara held up a hand. They both stilled, looking at him curiously. 

“I need your help with something else.”

“More task stuff?” Kankuro asked.

Gaara picked at a bit of fur on his bedspread. 

“No. Dancing.”

“Dancing?” Temari raised an eyebrow.

“For the Yule Ball. It’s traditional for the Champions to open the Ball with a dance. But I’ve never been to a dance before… You have. I need you to teach me.”

Kankuro clapped his hands and rubbed them together eagerly.

“Finally! Something I can actually be useful for! Don’t you worry, kid, I’ll teach you all my best moves.” 

Temari rolled her eyes. 

“You’ll get him slapped, is what you’ll do.”

“What, you have any better ideas? You gonna teach him to dance to some of your-” Kankuro lifted his upper lip in a sneer. “- _boy band music_?” 

“It’s better than that gloomy chanting you’re always carrying on about!” Temari shouted, throwing her hands in the air.

Gaara just sat quietly. He knew if he waited long enough, they would eventually come to terms without his interjection. He sat perfectly still on his bedspread, picking a hole in the fur throw, while Temari and Kankuro bickered their way down to the common room to retrieve the Victrola and records. Then he inspected his fingernails as the two, with much commentary, compromised on a record and set it to play. 

Finally, music began to crackle through the dorm room - the opening bars of a slow waltz. 

“Up you go,” Kankuro instructed. Gaara walked to the center of the room on stockinged feet while Temari magicked his bed and trunk to stand against the wall. 

Kankuro stood with his hands on his hips, tapping one foot in time to the music. Gaara took up his place across from him. 

“So,” Kankuro started, “two guys. Er...” He trailed off, looking at Temari desperately. “I’ve only ever done this with a girl.”

“Gaara,” Temari said, gently laying a hand on his shoulder, “are you going to be leading?”

Gaara looked at her over his shoulder and quirked an eyebrow in confusion.

“We didn’t discuss it.”

Kankuro barked a laugh.

“‘Course ya didn’t! Why would you?”

Temari pursed her lips. 

“Well, Lee is the taller partner, so perhaps he’ll lead?”

Gaara nodded in agreement. He could see the logic in that.

“But Gaara’s the Champion,” Kankuro interjected, tapping his chin with an index finger. “Shouldn’t he lead?”

Gaara’s nodding paused. That also made quite a lot of sense. 

“I don’t see how that’s relevant.” Temari crossed her arms and canted a hip to the side. “Fuu’s a Champion, too. Will she be leading her partner?”

“Knowing Fuu, probably,” Gaara said. 

Temari dropped her hands and hung her head with a sigh.

“We’ll just have to teach you both parts, then.”

Hours later, Gaara’s feet ached and his underarms were stained with sweat, but he could at least passably imitate the first steps of a waltz for both leading and following. 

“I think we’ll stop there for tonight,” Temari said, lifting the needle from the record. 

“Thank Merlin,” Kankuro said. “I’m pooped.”

Gaara’s shoulders sagged with fatigue as he bid them goodnight and closed the door behind them, but afterwards he stayed awake late in his room, dancing in clumsy circles by himself and humming a tune under his breath.


	5. The Yule Ball

Much of the week leading up to the Ball was spent in the library. Gaara claimed to be going there to research Runes, but if he was honest with himself, he spent twice as much time nervously tapping out the steps of the waltz under his table with an eye on the library door as he did studying for the Second Task. 

Every night after dinner, he cornered Kankuro and Temari in his room for dance practice. Gaara was far from a natural - ‘two left feet’, Kankuro declared, after one too many missteps left him with a bruised big toe - but he wanted to put forth enough effort to be at least competent, if he couldn’t be impressive. He was grateful for his siblings’ help, especially as it was to the detriment of their studies, and attempted to express as much.

“I hate Arithmancy homework anyway,” Kankuro said more than once. “Watchin’ you try an’ dance is way funnier.”

Finally, the night of the Ball was upon them. 

Gaara had only one set of formal robes in a simple, deep blood red, so he didn’t spend much time dressing, but Temari insisted that he let her comb his hair into a neat part and tamp down all the unruly flyaways. 

“There,” she said with an air of finality. She licked her thumb and flattened one last cowlick. “You look very charming.”

“C’mon, Temari,” Kankuro groaned, coming up behind Gaara and clapping him so hard on the shoulders that he jumped. “He doesn’t wanna look _charming_. He wants to look smokin’ hot, like a sexual tiger!”

Temari’s expression soured.

“I don’t want that,” Gaara reassured her. 

“We’re gonna be late,” Kankuro pressed. “Let’s go.” 

“We’ll see you there!” Temari said. She kissed Gaara on both cheeks, leaving him to wipe away sticky lipstick prints. “Good luck!”

“Go get ‘em, tiger,” Kankuro called with a wave. “Rowr!” 

Gaara exhaled sharply through his nose and consulted the parchment in his sweating hands once more. Now, he just needed to find his way to the Hufflepuff common room.

* * *

Lee’s directions were remarkably easy to follow, his print tidy and square, though punctuated with what Gaara considered an excessive number of exclamation marks. In no time at all, Gaara found himself in the basement of the castle, passing the still life painting that hung over the entrance to the kitchens and arriving at the barrel-lined recess that marked the entrance to the Hufflepuff dormitories. 

Taking a steadying breath, he raised a hand hesitantly to knock. His stomach fluttered nervously, as if a jar of Flitterbies had broken open within it. 

“Don’t bother,” came a voice behind him in Russian.

Gaara turned to see the figure of the same Slytherin boy who had spoken to him over the dinner table before. He wore long robes of pale grey, cuffed with black silk. His long, dark hair was pulled back in a slick ponytail. He regarded Gaara with a judgmental gaze, curiosity flickering in his pale eyes. 

“We haven’t formally met,” he said a bit stiffly. “I’m Neji Hyuuga.”

“Gaara,” Gaara said, extending a hand to shake.

“I know,” Neji replied archly. He brushed Gaara’s hand aside and went to stand directly in front of the barrels. “Here.” 

He tapped sharply on one of the lower barrels with his first knuckle in a rapid two-three tattoo. The top of the barrel uncorked and swung open silently, exposing a long, dirt-floored passage within.

“Ridiculous that they consider that any type of security,” Neji scoffed, starting to walk down the gently sloping hallway. Gaara quickly followed him, and the barrel swung shut behind him. “It’s been the same for over 600 years. You can read about it in _Hogwarts, A History_, for Merlin’s sake.”

Gaara followed him silently for a moment, then dared to break the silence.

“So,” he said, “you speak Russian.”

Neji snorted. 

“Yes, and French, Japanese, Swahili, and Portuguese.”

“How did you learn so many languages?”

“Old wizarding family. Expected us to learn all the languages of the major magical populations. Of course, with mother being a Muggle, there’s nothing they’ll let me _do_ with any of it, but it does make for a nice party trick,” Neji muttered. “Ah,” he broke off, switching abruptly to English, “we’re here.” 

The end of the passageway gleamed with a warm yellow light. Gaara followed Neji out of the end and found himself standing within a cozy, low-ceilinged room. The walls hung with plants in every shade of green in pitted copper pots of a variety of shapes and sizes, and circular windows like portholes looked out over sunny fields, despite the late hour. All around the round stone fireplace were arranged overstuffed wooden chairs, upholstered in yellow and black. A few students sat here and there, merrily chatting, styling each other’s hair or straightening their formal robes. A small group of miserable-looking first years clustered near the fireplace in their pajamas, glowering enviously at the older students. If any of them had noticed Neji and Gaara’s arrival, they didn’t react at all. 

“Neji!” a high voice carried through the common room. Lee’s friend, the girl with the buns, strode over to where they stood, her steps somewhat constrained by her fitted Mandarin-collared robes, pale pink and patterned with embroidered flowers. “How many times have I told you, you can’t just barge into our common room like that! What if someone had been changing in here?”

“It would serve them right for changing out in the middle of the common area,” Neji snapped, hands coming to rest sharply on his hips.

“Oh, you little- ” Her eyes narrowed and the elaborately decorated ornaments in her hair flashed dangerously in the firelight as she leaned forward, one scolding finger extended. “Oh!” She straightened suddenly, noticing Gaara standing behind Neji’s shoulder. A friendly grin broke over her face. “Hello, Gaara! You’re here for Lee, I expect.”

Gaara nodded silently.

“He’ll be down in just a moment, had a bit of a wardrobe mishap…. I’m Tenten, by the way.” She stuck out her hand and shook Gaara’s vigorously.

“Nice to meet you,” he said in a low voice. 

“Neji and I have heard so much about you!” She grinned, still shaking his hand. Her grip tightened until the bones in Gaara’s fingers complained. “Isn’t that right, Neji?” she said through gritted teeth, looking over at her friend. 

Neji rolled his eyes. 

“_So much_,” he confirmed. 

From the other end of the room came a gasp. Gaara’s hand dropped numbly from Tenten’s iron grip as she spun. 

Descending the stairs from the boys’ dormitories was Lee, his dark hair faintly shining and his skin burnished gold by the low light. He wore robes of a dark forest green, which only made his round eyes look deeper. Gaara’s mouth dropped open despite himself. Lee grinned and gave a wave, stumbled over the last stone step, then regained his footing with agile grace before hurrying across the common room. 

“Gaara!” he said, taking both of Gaara’s hands in his own. In comparison to Tenten’s, Lee’s hands were gentle and warm. “I’m sorry to make you wait.”

“I wish you wouldn’t have worn those robes, Lee,” Tenten remarked. “They’re so old-fashioned.” 

Lee looked down at his robes and blushed. It was true, the stitching along the front plackets and the cut of the shoulders certainly spoke more to the styles of several decades ago than the impeccably modern fashion of his friends’ garments. 

“Ah,” he said, brushing down the front of his robes a bit self-consciously. He looked up and met Gaara’s eyes. “Well, the sleeves of my other formal robes ripped.”

“Because you never stop exercising,” Neji remarked.

“You know I would’ve spelled them back on for you, Lee,” Tenten harried him. “You look like someone’s grandfather.”

Lee’s thick brows furrowed and he turned to glare at her. 

“Uncle Gai handed these down to me!” he protested. “And anyway, they fit perfectly.”

In fact, the robes were a bit tight across Lee’s chest, but as this meant they accentuated his impressive musculature, Gaara thought it better not to comment.

“I think you look handsome,” he said instead. 

Lee looked back at Gaara with his eyes shining. “Really?” 

Gaara nodded mutely. Any further words he may have wanted to say stuck in his throat. 

“You look very handsome yourself,” Lee muttered with a shy smile. “I like your hair like that.”

Behind him, Tenten made an exaggerated gagging noise.

“All right, lovebirds. Let’s get moving or we’re gonna be late for your grand entrance.”

Tenten cut around them and led them out of the common room with her head held high.

* * *

On the walk down to the Great Hall, Gaara felt himself growing ever more nauseous. The Flitterbies in his stomach had become riotous, now churning and spinning agitatedly. A trickle of cold sweat ran down his spine. What if he forgot all his dance steps? What if he tripped over his own feet and fell and split his robes open? What if he was such a terrible dancer that Lee declared he hated him and refused to ever speak to him again?

At the door of the Hall, Tenten took Neji’s elbow and led him to the door, which was already teeming with students. 

“See you inside!” she called with a wave. 

Lee waved back at her with a jolly grin, then brought his hand to rest across the small of Gaara’s back.

“Are you feeling all right?” he whispered, tilting his head down so only Gaara could hear him. 

Gaara nodded, swallowing around the lump in his throat.

“I’m fine,” he panted.

Lee’s warm hand crept around Gaara’s back to cup his waist. 

“Come over here for a minute.”

He led Gaara over to a small enclave in the high stone walls. Gaara followed him, his legs so stiff it felt as if he’d been struck by a Body Binding curse. Lee ducked them both behind a tapestry of a knight fighting a dragon; the heavy fabric fell behind them and blocked out all the clamor of the outside world. 

Lee’s broad hands fell heavy on Gaara’s shoulders and tugged him until they were standing face-to-face. 

“You _are_ nervous,” he said, and his thumbs dug into the tight muscle of Gaara’s shoulders. “Just relax. Everything’s going to be okay. It’s just dancing, and I’ll be right there with you.”

Lee’s words met Gaara’s ears like the first sip of warm cocoa on a chilly winter morning. He sighed, his head canting forward to meet Lee’s shoulder. Lee’s arms came around him in a firm embrace, and he rubbed down Gaara’s back soothingly. The casual intimacy of the gesture was like nothing Gaara had ever experienced before, and it scared and comforted him all at once. 

“What’s got you so worked up?” Lee murmured into Gaara’s hair. 

Gaara raised his head, looking up into Lee’s open, honest eyes. His lips parted to speak. Lee was terrifyingly close right now, every one of his long eyelashes visible even in the shadowed hollow where they stood. Gaara inhaled, and -

“Champions!” 

Gaara startled and stepped back. His back met the heavy wool of the tapestry behind him. 

“Champions,” called a professor’s voice from the hall, “line up outside the door.”

Lee smiled apologetically and took Gaara’s hand in his own, leading them back out into the hallway. 

“Hello, Professor Kakashi,” Lee nodded to the gray-haired professor corralling the Champions outside the Hall. “Happy Yule!”

The professor merely raised an eyebrow, then looked meaningfully back at the enclave from which they had just come. The back of Lee’s neck went red, and he ducked his head as they lined up behind Sasuke and his date. 

Sasuke stood stiff-backed, clearly uncomfortable in his plain black robes and necktie, looking for all the world like he was marching to the gallows rather than a school dance. Hanging from his elbow was the tall witch who had commentated the Quidditch match, in robes of dark fuschia that gathered into bustles at her hips, her dark skin the color of cherry wood. 

“Hello Sakura, Sasuke,” Lee greeted them as he and Gaara assumed their places in the line. 

Sasuke merely grunted, but Sakura turned around and looked at Lee with frank surprise written all over her face. 

“Hullo, Lee,” she said. “I didn’t realize- ” She paused, seeming to think better of whatever she was about to say, then broke into a thin, catlike smile, blinking slowly. “Aw, you two look just like Christmas!” As she spoke, her elaborate, braided updo shifted to the colors of their formal robes - dark green and red. 

“Sakura’s a Metamorphmagus,” Lee whispered to the side of Gaara’s head. 

Gaara nodded and gave her a weak smile in greeting. 

“Happy Yule,” he said with great effort, fanning his fingers in a pale imitation of a wave. 

Sakura’s bright blue eyes studied his face, then lingered for a long moment on Lee’s hand hovering over the small of Gaara’s back.

“Sweet,” she said finally, her lips parting to show straight white teeth. As she turned back around, her hair shifted smoothly back to match the color of her robes. 

There was a shuffling behind them, and Gaara looked over his shoulder to find Fuu, arm-in-arm with her date, a gangly, nervous-looking Ravenclaw boy in high-collared robes and dark glasses. He looked utterly underdressed and out of place next to Fuu, beaming irrepressibly in her many-layered, bright orange robes that swept around her feet in tufts of silk.

“Are you excited?” she said, raising her eyebrows eagerly. She tugged at the sleeve of her date’s plain, moss-green robes. “I’m so excited I could just die! What about you?” 

“I could definitely die,” her date muttered into his collar. He looked as if he were about to be sick. 

At the front of the line, Professor Kakashi clapped his hands and drew the attention of the Champions and their dates. 

“Everyone here? Great. I’m meant to give you some grand speech about representing your schools … but I won’t. So, good luck!” His lone visible eye crinkled, and with that, he threw the door to the Great Hall wide. Inside, the band kicked up and began to play. 

Sasuke and Sakura marched past him, Sakura with a roll of her eyes, followed by Gaara and Lee, then Fuu and her date. The Great Hall was hung with criss-crossing garlands of evergreen that sparkled with dewdrops of light. The long tables that typically dominated the room had been pushed away and were replaced with a sprung floor of interlocking wooden panels suitable for dancing. Floating candles hovered over the dance floor, flickering merrily. Even the back door to the hall, which opened onto the gardens, had been transfigured into a vine-strewn arbor, which glittered with icy crystals, reflecting in the light. All around the room were tables laden with sweets and snacks, interspersed with groups of chatting students and teachers in formal robes of every color. 

Gaara swallowed and adjusted the collar of his robes. Lee took Gaara’s fur-lined cloak from around his shoulders and hung it somewhere - Gaara was too busy staring around at the scenery to notice where. Gaara felt temporarily unmoored, but Lee returned in an instant and reseated his hand on Gaara’s lower back, grounding him. 

As they took their places in the center of the dance floor, out of the corner of his eye, Gaara glimpsed Temari, leaning against one wall with her arms crossed over the chest of her dark blue robes, her hair braided into a crown around her forehead and interwoven with ribbons of robin’s egg blue. Her date stood next to her: an indifferent-looking Ravenclaw sixth year, also in blue robes that she had no doubt required that he match to her ensemble, already yawning as he looked over the dance floor. Gaara could not see where Kankuro had gone; he assumed he was already at one of the banquet tables stuffing his face. 

Lee stepped in close and held up his arms; Gaara slipped his hand around Lee’s shoulder and took up the leading position, elbows stiff. His ankles felt weak already, and they hadn’t even started dancing. Lee offered him a reassuring smile. The music suddenly switched to a slow-tempoed waltz, and the dance began. 

Gaara immediately stepped forward with his right foot, then grimaced - his first mistake. Lee didn’t seem to notice, though, instinctively moving along with Gaara’s jarring, awkward movements. 

“One, two, three; one, two, three,” Gaara counted under his breath, carefully watching his own feet. He turned his shoulders right and stepped to the left, and immediately trod upon Lee’s foot. He glanced up apologetically - Lee’s eyes watered a bit, but he was still smiling gamely. Gaara’s ears grew hot with embarrassment. Under the singing violins and trill of the woodwinds, he could hear the whispers of the crowd. Every pair of staring eyes stung his skin. 

“Relax,” Lee whispered, squeezing Gaara’s hand in his. 

Gaara nodded at his feet and attempted a simple turn - only to collide with Sasuke and Sakura, who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere on his right side. At least Sasuke didn’t seem to be having any more fun than Gaara was, utterly ignoring his date in favor of glaring off to the side of the dance floor at a couple of Gryffindors who were jeering at the dancers. Gaara recognized them as the Gryffindor Beaters who had nearly killed him. The shy girl who played Keeper stood between them, dressed in robes of deep plum with her long, dark hair done up in an elegant chignon that accentuated her pale eyes, looking up at her date with barely concealed disappointment. Sakura seemed not to have noticed the staring match at all, gazing at Sasuke with stars in her eyes, her hair slowly fading from pale pink to deep red and back. 

The waltz doubled in pace as Fuu and her partner spun past them. She half-dragged him across the dance floor, making up for her lack of rhythm with raw enthusiasm. 

As he attempted to keep tempo, Gaara felt his shoulders tense and tremble. 

Lee bent his neck down until his lips brushed Gaara’s ear. 

“Would you be more comfortable if I was leading?” he murmured. His breath ruffled through Gaara’s hair, now sticking to his skin with sweat. 

Gaara nodded, just a bare dip of his chin, and Lee smoothly readjusted them, realigning their hands and drawing Gaara’s body in close with a firm hand on his shoulder. 

The music segued into a jazzy two-step, and Lee immediately switched his step to match. Gaara looked up at him, utterly lost. Lee smiled brilliantly. 

“Just follow my lead,” he said. “You’re doing great.”

Gaara quickly shook the tension from his shoulders and relaxed into Lee’s hold. It was surprisingly easy, in fact, once he’d let himself go and allowed Lee to take over. Lee was clearly an experienced dancer, and all Gaara had to do was follow the motions of his body as he spun in a series of intricate turns and flashy steps, their robes billowing out behind them. 

More students and teachers flooded the dance floor. Gaara watched as Fuu spun her partner off into the crowd and bowed with her hand extended to the Beauxbatons Headmaster, who took her hand with a bemused smirk. She immediately launched the two of them across the floor in a frenzied movement of feet and a flurry of her skirts. Over by the banquet table, Gaara caught sight of a professor who had to be Lee’s uncle, if the family resemblance and matching robes were anything to go by, grabbing the hand of Professor Kakashi and spinning him in dizzy circles with a mad grin on his face. Even Temari and her disaffected date joined the floor, though his elbows sagged lazily and his footwork dragged. Kankuro glided past Gaara with a knowing wink, his arms around the waist of a Slytherin girl with long, Veela-pale blonde hair. He didn’t seem to notice the way his date kept looking over his shoulder, staring daggers at Sakura and Sasuke. 

Lee raised his arm and twirled Gaara under it, making him go light-headed, then dipped him dramatically to the ground, his strong arms effortlessly supporting Gaara’s weight. As he came back up, Lee’s hands dropped to his waist.

“On three,” Lee whispered, “jump. One, two- ”

As the music reached its peak, Gaara’s feet left the ground. Warm hands circled his waist and held him suspended. The crowd faded away; he felt as if he were flying. When he returned to earth, he looked into Lee’s dark eyes, and his face broke into an unbidden smile.

* * *

After several more songs, Gaara found himself breathless - not just from the exertion, but from Lee’s beaming grin, too. 

Taking a sip of Butterbeer that did nothing to calm his fraying nerves, Gaara suggested they step out into the gardens to clear their heads. Even though they were no longer dancing, Lee’s hand still clasped his firmly as they passed through the archway and onto the Hogwarts grounds. 

The gardens had been transformed into an icy wonderland: charmed icicles hung from the bare branches of Plangentine trees, glowing from within with a faint blue light; carved ice statues of red deer and snow hares sat scattered about the gardens’ winding paths; from inside the Great Hall, the faint strains of music still carried into the cold night air. 

Gaara shivered and immediately regretted his decision to leave the embracing warmth of the indoors. Lee eyed him with faint concern. A large, fluffy snowflake floated down and landed in Lee’s long eyelashes, melting as soon as he blinked and it made contact with the warm skin of his cheek. 

“Take my cloak,” Lee offered, slinging it off his shoulders and wrapping it around Gaara, despite the fact that Gaara was already swaddled in his own thicker, heavier garment.

“Couldn’t you just use a Warming Charm?” he asked. Lee’s hand rubbed at his far shoulder as they walked, the friction heating him up. 

Lee wiped his already reddening nose. 

“Of- of course,” he stammered. “Of course I could.” But he made no move to do so.

“Let’s sit,” Gaara suggested, leading Lee to a set of long benches, cut off from the world by a row of rounded holly bushes, their berries shining purple in the low light. Gaara glanced around and, seeing no one, slipped his wand from the sleeve of his robes and cast a Silencing Charm, followed by a quick Warming Charm for good measure. The little bubble of privacy immediately suffused with heat; the falling snowflakes melted to water droplets and slid down the outside of the invisible dome around them. 

Lee blew into his chapped palms and rubbed them together, then quickly took Gaara’s hand again. 

“Thanks,” he said, grinning. “That’s much better.” He squeezed Gaara’s hand, firmly enough that it almost hurt. 

Gaara looked down at Lee’s large hands. There was a long scratch across the back of his right hand that suspiciously resembled the shape of a Hippogriff’s claw. Though his fingers and nails had been freshly scrubbed, they were still pitted all over with nicks and rough with callouses. He looked back up at Lee’s face and scooted a bit closer, telling himself that it was only for warmth and not for the feeling of the corded muscles of Lee’s thick arm flexing against his own bony shoulder.

“You’re very … athletic,” Gaara said to their joined hands, “for a wizard.”

Lee’s other hand came up to rub the back of his neck. He crossed and uncrossed his ankles, shifting a few centimeters away and glancing away from Gaara down the darkened garden path. Gaara slid down the bench until they were touching again. 

“Yeah, I’ve… ” Lee started, then sighed. “I’ve got no natural aptitude for magic, really. Actually, my family thought I was a Squib.”

It was then that Gaara realized he’d never seen Lee _do_ any magic at all. He didn’t even know what his wand looked like. He cocked his head and examined Lee’s face, still staring out into the dark away from him. 

“My family’s an old pureblood family,” Lee continued. His words picked up pace as if some great well had been uncapped and the story now flowed freely from his mouth. “It was … shameful to them, for me to be the way that I am. I’m- I’m _not_ a Squib, by the way - not that there would be anything wrong with me if I was! - but it’s just … harder for me to do magic than it is for the average wizard.” 

Lee kicked his feet, chuckling under his breath. Gaara rubbed his thumb over Lee’s scarred knuckles as he continued. 

“Uncle Gai calls me a ‘late bloomer’,” he said with a wry smile that twisted his mouth in a way that made Gaara’s heart stumble over itself. “I’m lucky to have him. He took me in and raised me himself, after my parents- well. He’s been wonderful to me, taught me everything I know. It’s thanks to him that I even got my Hogwarts invitation! They weren’t going to let me in, but he petitioned the Headmaster…. That’s why I want to be just like him. To make him proud. Even if I’m not very good at _proper_ magic, I can still be a fine wizard!”

Lee stopped suddenly, looking back down at Gaara’s face. His large, dark eyes were watery. He released the fist he had clenched in the air in the midst of his impassioned speech. 

“Sorry,” he said, smiling without teeth. “I’ve been prattling on and on about myself.” His hand came up to cup Gaara’s face and swept aside the hair on Gaara’s forehead. His thumb brushed the raised keloid of Gaara’s scar; his eyes traced its lumpy heart shape. His mouth dropped open in a small _oh_ of surprise, and his hand fell away. Gaara almost leaned in to chase the feeling. 

“What happened?” Lee asked impulsively. 

Now it was Gaara’s turn to stare off into the empty gardens around them. The bright yellow lights from the Great Hall’s high windows spilled out over the snowy grounds like panels of sunshine in the dark blue of the night. He looked up at the moon, hanging low and white and nearly full overhead. The circumstances of his childhood were something Gaara didn’t choose to speak about often, but, when his eyes found Lee’s again, he saw nothing but earnest concern and open-hearted worry. 

“My father tried to kill me.” It was the first time he had ever put voice to those words. 

Lee’s thick eyebrows furrowed. 

“Why?” 

Behind Lee’s eyes, Gaara saw an unfamiliar emotion flashing. This was not the raw, selfish curiosity that often drew in his orbiters and admirers, questioning his provenance for their own satisfaction. Lee looked … angry. Or something _like_ angry. Anger was as familiar to Gaara as an old, worn cloak, but the feeling coming off Lee was … different, somehow. He was angry, certainly, not at Gaara, but at something external, something Gaara couldn’t quite place. Gaara squeezed Lee’s hand hard. 

“There was a prophecy,” he said finally. 

“A prophecy? About what?”

“That I would kill him.” Gaara’s eyes fixed on where their fingers interlaced. He stroked his thumb over Lee’s again and again as he continued to speak. “I was just a baby. My mother tried to stop him - she jumped in front of me….” 

There was a wet sniff from beside him, and Lee started dabbing at his eyes with the sleeve of his robes. Gaara paused, but once the words had started coming out, it was almost impossible to stop them. 

“She …” Gaara shook his head, cutting off that line of thought. “The curse rebounded and hit him, but it didn’t kill him. It hurt him badly, though. I don’t remember any of it, but he had to reconstruct half of his body. He’s more Dark Magic than he is human, now.” 

There was a creaking sound. Gaara glanced to Lee’s lap and found he had one fist clenched so tightly in the fabric of his robes that it was starting to tear, though his hand in Gaara’s remained gentle. Suddenly, Gaara recognized the strange emotion flaring in Lee’s wide eyes - not just plain anger, but _righteous_ anger, anger on Gaara’s behalf, anger at an injustice he couldn’t repair. Gaara’s breath froze in his lungs, the experience so foreign he wasn’t sure what to do or say next. 

“He should be in Azkaban!” Lee spat furiously. 

Gaara forced a bitter laugh through his raw throat. 

“Things are different, back home.” He looked around at the softly lit gardens, the fairy lights gleaming in the trees and the baubles decorating the trailing vines that hung from every trellis. Fat flakes of snow spiraled down and made silent pillows on the tops of clusters of blooming Starthistle. “My father is very powerful.” 

“So, what are you going to do about it?” Lee said quietly.

“Do?” Gaara glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, eyebrow raised. 

“I mean, are you going to … fulfill the prophecy,” Lee finished in a whisper, fire in his eyes. “He would deserve it.”

Despite the warmth of their shared bubble, Gaara gave a little shiver. Goosebumps prickled down his spine. He shifted closer to Lee, until they were pressed flush against one another from shoulder to hip, arms overlapping. 

“I used to want to,” Gaara said to the row of holly bushes. “But, I think the best revenge would be to ignore the prophecy entirely. He wants me to be like him, but he’s afraid of me, too…. I’m going to rebuke Dark Magic entirely. I’ll never use my magic to hurt another person.” Gaara looked up and stared Lee straight in the eyes. “I’m going to become as strong as I can without ever resorting to the things he’s done.”

“That’s an admirable goal,” Lee said. The blue glow of the icicles reflected in his eyes, and Gaara felt himself getting lost in them. 

He leaned in closer, his hand on Lee’s knee. Lee tilted his head; his breath brushed Gaara’s nose, warm and smelling of cinnamon. Gaara let his eyes flutter closed, and -

Suddenly, Lee drew back. Gaara opened his eyes and saw two girls walking past their bench, hand-in-hand, the hoods of their cloaks pulled up around their ears. Lee coughed nervously into his fist and sat up ramrod straight, readjusting so his arm was around Gaara’s shoulder. His cheeks burned a florid red. 

Gaara was unable to stop a small, disappointed huff from escaping his nose. 

“So,” Gaara said, after a long, awkward silence, “Quidditch.”

“Yes!” Lee latched onto the topic eagerly, turning to look at him. 

“Is it hard? You seem very good at it.”

Lee’s face collapsed into a confused frown.

“You’ve never played?” 

Gaara shook his head. 

“I’ve never even been on a broomstick before.”

Lee drew back with a dramatic gasp, hand over his open mouth.

“You’ve never- ! What? Why?”

“Father never saw the need for it. He thinks _sports_ are for the lower classes.”

Lee seized Gaara by both shoulders and gave him a little shake. His eyes blazed with determination.

“Gaara,” he said sternly, “we are going to get you on a broomstick. Tonight.”


	6. The Broomstick Ride

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, the final chapter! Thank you to everyone who stuck through to the end!
> 
> Also, I am putting together a GaaLeeGaa Holiday Exchange on Tumblr and Twitter! [Click here for information about the exchange and dates!](https://gaaleegaaholidayexchange.tumblr.com) I hope everyone will participate!

Keeping up with Lee as he dashed through the Hogwarts halls was no less exhausting than it was the first time, further complicated by the fact that they kept having to dart into side passages and duck behind statuary to avoid the watchful eyes of the patrolling teachers, on the lookout for students sneaking away from the dance.

Finally, they found themselves back outside the Hufflepuff common room. Lee glanced up and down the kitchen hallways, wide-eyed and frantic - he could not have looked more suspicious if he tried. Fortunately, the only living things around were a few House Elves pushing carts of dirtied cutlery and empty chafing dishes into the kitchen entrance. 

“Just act natural,” Lee scolded, rapping his knuckles on the barrel. Gaara chose not to comment on the fact that he was merely standing there, looking the same as he always did (though still wrapped in Lee’s cloak), while Lee was acting perhaps as _un_natural as it was possible for a person to act. 

The earthen passage to the common room proper was too narrow for two people to walk side-by-side, but they attempted it gamely nonetheless, hips bumping into one another and elbows jostling until, with a sigh of frustration, Lee made the executive decision to take Gaara’s hand instead. 

The common room was empty upon their arrival but for the blazing fire and the crumpled form of a third year student, who had seemingly fallen asleep while waiting for her older peers to return from the Ball. Lee quietly retrieved one of the many knitted afghans that hung over the backs of the overstuffed chairs littering the room and tucked it over her tiny body, giving her a gentle pat on the head. She stirred, blinking muzzily, then nuzzled back into the blanket and drifted off. Gaara’s heart skipped several beats. 

Lee looked carefully around the common room one last time before leading Gaara up the stairs to the sixth year boys’ dormitory. 

“Everyone should still be at the dance,” he whispered unnecessarily, as they climbed the low-ceilinged stairway. The stairwell was lined with varicolored potted plants on either side, everything from the long green tendrils of Flitterblooms to the unique purple shoots of Bouncing Bulbs. Gaara smiled despite himself; had he been given the choice, he would have wanted his own dormitory to resemble this place. 

The dorm room itself was exquisitely warm, heated by copper bedwarmers that hung next to every four-poster bed, though the air was slightly overcome by the dirty sock smell of teenage boys living communally. The room was scattered with the accumulated detritus of Lee’s peers in a way that it would never have been acceptable at Durmstrang. A large, clearly previously worn pair of underwear hung over the bulb of the copper lamp next to one student’s bed, and another’s bedside table boasted a host of grease-ringed bowls and grimy coffee cups. 

Lee’s own bed-space was immediately identifiable: his bed was neatly made with perfect hospital corners and his many Care of Magical Creatures books were stacked in a tidy pile at his bedside, arranged by size. Atop the trunk at the end of his bed sat an orderly row of heavy-looking iron weights. Gaara took a seat on the fluffy patchwork quilt that topped Lee’s bed while Lee shifted his roommates’ clutter to give himself enough space to open his trunk. 

Gaara found himself rubbing a bit of pilled fabric between his fingers, idly imagining what it might be like to attend such a school - a warm, cozy place where caring for one another was prioritized, where living things took root and flourished, where lasting bonds were formed and sustained. 

He was stirred from his reverie by Lee finally sitting up, broomstick held aloft in his hand.

“Here we are!” he said. “Ready to go?”

Gaara looked it over dubiously. 

“It looks very fast.”

The tips of Lee’s ears went red.

“It’s just an old Cleansweep of my uncle’s, nothing fancy,” he reassured Gaara, standing and walking to the door of the room. Gaara jumped to his feet and quickly followed him. “You don’t have anything to worry about.” As they descended the narrow stairway, Lee turned suddenly and clapped Gaara on the shoulder, giving him a comforting squeeze. “Besides, I’ll be there to take care of you.”

Gaara was quite sure his heart stopped until they made it back outside, and the cold bite of the winter air shocked it back into beating. 

They ended up next to the stables again, far away from the music of the Great Hall and the enchanted lights of the gardens. Lee gave a low whistle and Ningame trotted over. They exchanged bows, and Lee held out a bit of sausage that he had secreted somewhere in his robes. The Hippogriff snatched it from his fingers, tilted its head back, and swallowed the meat without chewing. Then it turned to regard Gaara with an intent stare.

“Don’t be greedy, now,” Lee scolded the creature. “He’s not brought you anything.”

The Hippogriff gave a derisive snort and stomped back off to its paddock.

Lee laughed, a bright, ringing sound that made Gaara’s chest go tight. 

“Right, then,” he said. “First things first, let’s get you on the broom.” 

He set the broom on the ground to Gaara’s right and stood in front of him.

“Okay, now put your hand out and say, ‘Up!’”

Gaara extended his hand. 

“Up,” he repeated, though with only a shadow of Lee’s enthusiasm. Something hard thudded into his outstretched palm and he grasped it instinctively. The broom thrummed under his fingers. 

“Perfect!” Lee clapped his hands and grinned. “You’re a natural! You have no idea how many tries it took me to get that far, the first time I tried flying. The broom just rolled around on the ground and wiggled for _hours_. I thought I’d never get in the air!”

Having seen the expertise with which Lee commanded his broom around the Quidditch pitch, Gaara found this hard to believe. 

“Now, go ahead and mount the broom - ”

Gaara gingerly placed his leg over the broom and stared at Lee, wide-eyed. The thing started buzzing more insistently, and he could feel his heels raising as the broom tried to take flight.

“- and you’re going to kick off on your own.”

Gaara planted both feet and remained resolutely on the ground. The broom hummed furiously and bucked in his clenched fists.

“What’s wrong?” Lee took a step forward. His thick eyebrows furrowed in worry. “Is it not working?”

Gaara shook his head. The broom was working just fine, but -

“Um, do you not _want_ to fly on your own?”

Gaara shook his head again, adamantly this time. 

Lee smiled and gave a wink. The moonlight reflected in his dark hair. 

“Not to worry! Everyone’s a bit nervous their first time.” He hummed a bit, thinking, then slammed his fist into his palm. “How about this: you sit behind me, and I’ll show you the ropes.”

Gaara considered it for a moment, then nodded. That would be acceptable. 

Lee positioned himself in front of Gaara and smoothly slung a leg over the broomstick. 

“Scoot forward and put your hands around my waist,” he said, and Gaara complied.

“Ready?” 

Before Gaara could say, ‘Actually, I could use another few moments on solid ground,’ Lee’s boot kicked at the soil and sent them airborne. 

Gaara’s stomach plummeted down to somewhere around his ankles. He looked down - the stables and the Hippogriff within were suddenly very tiny, like model figurines from a Christmas window display - and quickly buried his face in Lee’s shoulder with his eyes clenched shut. He leaned in closer and wrapped his arms fully around Lee’s waist, hanging on for dear life.

“Relax,” Lee wheezed. “I won’t let you fall. Besides, if you cut off all the blood supply to my brain, we’ll definitely end up crashing.”

Gaara relaxed his grip, but only minutely, and tentatively opened one eye to look down at the ground vanishing beneath them. The breath stopped in his lungs. Below, the Hogwarts grounds were spread out like frosting on a distant cake, everything covered in a layer of white, glittering with icy starlight. 

“They key to flying is all about balance,” Lee shouted over the wind whistling through Gaara’s ears. “Your body tells the broom where to go. Let’s try a few turns. Lean to the left.”

Gaara felt the muscles over Lee’s ribs shifting under his palms as Lee leaned into the wind, and he leaned along with him. The broom smoothly arced to the right, swooping towards the treeline of the Forbidden Forest. 

“Great! Now lean back a bit- ” Lee pushed into Gaara’s chest with his back, and Gaara leaned back too, fingers tightening on Lee’s waist. The broom slowly started to climb over the forest. 

The next words Lee said were lost to the wind as Gaara looked down. From above, the trees jutted from the snowy ground like darkened skeletons, their craggy branches like fingers reaching up to grasp at the sky. Thatches of evergreens bristled like porcupine quills between clustered stones, hoary with frost. A tiny creek wound its way in between the trees, slick with shine and looking like a seam of ice. On its banks, the shadowed backs of some unfamiliar creatures marched in careful lockstep.

Lee followed Gaara’s gaze to the ground. 

“Ah, that will be the Centaur colony,” he said. “Best turn around now. They’ll start shooting if we hover around here too long.” 

As he spoke, a single flinted arrow flashed past the nose of the broom and arced back down into the forest.

Lee waved towards the ground and gave an apologetic thumbs up, then leaned sharply to the right and careened back over the open field, headed towards the Black Lake. The broom slowed to a leisurely pace, gently drifting through the night sky. Cold air blew Lee’s hair back until it tickled Gaara’s cheeks. Lee leaned his head back so that Gaara could make out the profile of his heavy brow and button nose. 

“Just look at that moon,” Lee breathed. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

Gaara looked up. Above them, the sky expanded in every direction, dark blue fading to black at the horizon. The entire expanse was dotted with silvery stars, glinting and winking in their constellations. The moon hung heavy and low, seeming almost close enough to touch. Small furrows of windblown clouds skirted across the sky and came to rest in between the stars. 

Gaara dug his fingers into Lee’s ribs dizzily. He had been wrong before. Dancing was _nothing_ like flying. 

They continued to fly for a while, Lee pointing out the finer points of broom handling as they went. Gaara hardly heard a word he said, fascinated with the changing landscape below him: the Durmstrang Ship, rendered tiny as a child’s toy bobbing in the black waters of the lake below; the Hogwarts Express transformed into a miniature train set on popsicle-stick tracks; even the Astronomy Tower, which they circled lazily, headed ever skyward, seemed like nothing more than the spire of a particularly elaborate dollhouse beneath them. 

At last, Lee brought them back towards the stables. The broom started to descend, but the soaring in Gaara’s stomach continued. Even after they touched ground, it was a long moment before he released his frozen fingers from around Lee’s waist, though his immobility had little to do with the temperature. 

“What did you think?” Lee said, dismounting the broom. He stood tall, shoulders thrown back, hair tousled by the wind and overflowing with joyous energy. “Ready to try it for yourself?”

“No,” Gaara said, stepping forward on shaky feet. 

He grabbed Lee by the shoulders, pulled him down, and kissed him. 

The broom dropped to the ground with a whiff of displaced snow. Lee’s arms came up and encircled Gaara’s waist, pulling him closer. Gaara breathed in the heady scent of brisk air and Lee’s heated breath, pressing their lips together hard. Blood pounded in his ears and drowned out every other sound in the still nighttime world. He lit up from within as if set aflame; his face, his fingers, the tips of his ears all the way down to the tips of his toes burned. He had never felt so warm in all his life. 

After a long, slow moment, they broke apart, their breath fogging the air between them. Lee cupped Gaara’s face tenderly. His fingers brushed through Gaara’s hair and over the edges of his scar again. 

“It’s getting late,” he said in a voice laden with regret. “I should walk you back to the ship.”

Gaara almost refused, almost shook his head and planted his feet right there in the snow and demanded that Lee kiss him again - kiss him forever - but he didn’t. As Lee took his hand and they began the long, slow walk to the banks of the Black Lake, he couldn’t deny the fatigue coming to drape over his shoulders, heavy as a quilt. 

At the ship’s gangplank, Lee came to a stop. 

Gaara turned to look at him just as Lee drew him into a fierce embrace. He would probably never get used to Lee’s unusual strength, he thought to himself, or at least he hoped he never would. The crackling of his ribs when Lee squeezed him tight was almost a comfort to him now. 

When they separated, Gaara looked up into Lee’s face hopefully. Lee’s fingers combed through his hair once more. 

Then, Lee pressed a tender kiss to Gaara’s forehead, right over his scar. 

Shock tingled through Gaara, a buzzing warmth not unlike being stung by a Billywig. Absently, he looked down at his feet to make sure they hadn’t left the ground. 

“Thank you for a wonderful evening,” Lee said. His dark eyes were a bit moist at the corners, overflowing with the sincerity of his emotions. “I have to get back before curfew. Will I see you tomorrow?” 

Gaara could only nod, his hands falling to hang limp at his sides as Lee turned and began to jog back to the castle. He felt suddenly colder and tugged Lee’s cloak closer around him -

“Wait!” Gaara shouted, in a voice much too loud to be his own. “Your cloak!”

“Keep it!” Lee called back with a wave, looking over his shoulder with a grin that stabbed right to Gaara’s very heart. “I’ll find another one!”

Gaara wrapped the cloak all the way around himself before he boarded the ship. 

“Looks like _someone_ had a good night,” Kankuro commented as Gaara crossed the common room. He had his feet kicked up on an ottoman and was slouched down so far his head was lower than his knees, his formal robes wrinkled and disarrayed. 

Temari glanced up from where she was massaging her reddened feet, her silvery high heels discarded beside her. Her hair had started to come loose from its elaborate braids and her ribbons trailed on her shoulders. She raised an eyebrow. 

“I’m glad you enjoyed yourself,” she said wryly. 

Gaara didn’t respond to either of them, preferring to remain in his bubble of content for just a few moments longer. 

Kankuro wolf-whistled at his retreating back as he ascended the stairs to his room. 

Once he was inside with the door locked tightly behind him, Gaara made quick work of folding Lee’s cloak atop his own pillow. 

That night, he fell asleep instantly and slept dreamlessly, surrounded by Lee’s scent and the memory of a warmth that never faded.

* * *

The next morning, Gaara split off from his siblings as soon as they entered the Great Hall. All of the trappings of the previous night had been dismantled, the decorations all stowed away and the Hall back to its typical bacon-scented arrangement of long tables and benches. 

“Hey, where ya goin’?” Kankuro shouted, breaking off from a rousing one-man debate on whether or not he would have beans on his toast.

Gaara ignored him and walked straight past the Slytherins, making a beeline for the Hufflepuff table. 

He arrived behind Lee’s seat to no small number of gaping mouths and incredulous stares. Lee, however, turned around instantly and regarded him with a jolly grin. There was dirt under his fingernails already - he must have been out at the Hippogriff’s paddock this morning. 

“Gaara!” he cried, as if this were an everyday occurrence and not one of the boldest things Gaara had ever done in his life. “Are you joining us for breakfast this time?”

Heart in his throat, Gaara nodded. 

Without a word, Tenten scooted aside to make room for him at Lee’s side. Gaara took his seat, thankful for the narrow space that gave him an excuse to press up against Lee’s warm arm. The other students at the table began muttering behind cupped hands, but Lee simply handed Gaara a plate and started loading it up with toast and eggs. 

As Lee launched into a discussion of his favorite dances from the previous night, and Tenten queried Gaara on his preference of jams, Gaara felt a distant prickling in his scar. Dimly, he became aware of his father’s eyes burning on the back of his neck, but he couldn’t bring himself to care at all. Surrounded by warmth and friendship, he felt completely light inside.


End file.
